LA ROCHE, PICARDY, FRANCE
I
The old priest knew as he descended the stairs that morning and entered the modest room in which he generally ate his breakfast, that the day ahead of him promised, most unexpectedly, to be an unusual one. For his housekeeper, Madame Proulx, was waiting there for him with an expression of barely contained excitement.
A short woman who, at sixty, was almost two decades younger than the priest, Madame Proulx had experienced a life filled with difficulty, struggle and upset. Her smiles were not frequent. Yet this morning she was beaming, all but giddy with what looked like anticipation. The old man recognised the signs at once; she had some piece of delicious gossip to impart.
At his age, pleasures were relatively few, and so the priest decided to relish this moment, even to dance with it a little. Without showing the slightest sign of having noted the housekeeper’s eagerness to converse, he shuffled into the room before, in his tolerable, if hardly stylish, French, bidding her a good morning. At such moments, he took an odd, pawky delight in exaggerating his own antiquity.
“Good morning, monsieur,” said Madame Proulx.
The priest took his place at the table where warm bread and jams had been laid out for him and set to the buttering of it with gusto. He made several sounds of pleasure at the prospect of the food. It was not until he had devoured an entire slice, and had begun upon a second, that he looked over at his housekeeper and, asked, with a grin which might reasonably enough be described as boyish: “How are you today, madame?”
Proulx smiled and nodded and confirmed that she was well.
“Good,” the old priest said vaguely as he continued to chew. “That’s very good. Now, you’ll have to tell me, is there anything of particular note happening today?”
Eagerly, the Frenchwoman stepped forwards. “There’s nothing which you had planned, monsieur. Nothing in our calendar. But there is, I must say, something new in the village.”
“Is that so?” said the priest with exaggerated wonderment, as though this was the first time that it had even occurred to him that the lady might have some original information to present. “And what is that exactly?”
“May I sit down, monsieur?”
“Of course, madame. For goodness’ sake. You ought to know by now better than to ask. We stand on no ceremony here.”
The housekeeper took a seat beside the priest with a closer proximity than many observers might have considered to be altogether appropriate.
“What is it?” the priest asked as he finished the last of his bread and dabbed at his lips with a starched white napkin.
“Not what, monsieur, but who.”
“Who?”
“Strangers in the village, monsieur, and of the most unusual sort.”
“That’s a little out of the ordinary,” said the priest, “given the time of year, but surely by no means remarkable.”
“They’re travellers, monsieur.”
The old priest nodded. “Where are they from originally?”
“England, monsieur.”
“Oh.” At this, something like a ripple of unease passed through the old man. Ridiculous, of course: any number of his countrymen wandered through this part of the world annually even if none but he had chosen to settle there in perpetuity. Still, there was no reason on earth to think that these new arrivals possessed any connection whatever to him. All that he said was: “How nice for them.”
The housekeeper leaned in close, to deliver the most enticing part of her story. “And they are asking, monsieur, for you.”
Carefully, thoughtfully, the old priest laid down the napkin on the table. As calmly as he could he asked the lady to describe the new arrivals.
“Monsieur, I have not seen them for myself. I only have the word of the farmer’s wife.”
“Then, please, tell me what she told you.” For the first time that day, a quality of irritation was audible in the old priest’s voice.
Madame Proulx told him what she had heard, every detail of it. Upon hearing the description, the priest sat very still and said nothing. He looked down at his hands to see that both were shaking.
“What is it, monsieur?” asked Madame Proulx, first crestfallen, then alarmed. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s only emotion, madame. One I thought I’d successfully outrun.”
“You’re afraid?”
The old priest nodded, his throat suddenly constricted, his eyes prickling.
Without asking any further questions, Madame Proulx simply gathered the old man up in her arms and held him close, close enough to feel the frantic, lurching beating of his heart.
II
The priest considered fleeing, though the thought was only a brief one, soon extinguished. It was, he considered, a primeval instinct, of which he now felt rather ashamed. For by the finish of his embrace with Madame Proulx, he had made up his mind to stay.
He saw no reason, after all, why these strangers should mean him any harm, save for the creeping sensation of the tide of the past coming back into shore again, after all this time. Having reassured the housekeeper as best he could, he had gone back upstairs, each step on the old staircase feeling heavier and more effortful than usual, every thud of his feet receiving an answering squeak of weary protest from the boards. In his room, he had dressed for cold weather and had gone again to the ground floor and stepped out into the garden. He brought with him a shooting stick, a memento from an old life which he had thought (and hoped) was almost entirely buried.
“Monsieur.” Madame Proulx stopped him on his way to the door. “Wherever are you going?”
“Only outside,” he said.
She placed her right hand upon his left arm, the gesture both affectionate and faintly proprietorial. “Whatever for?”
“To wait.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. Very gently, he moved her hand away. “All shall be well,” he said, “and all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.”
Madame Proulx frowned. The quotation was a favourite of the old priest’s. She opened her mouth to speak only to close it again, having thought better of the remark.
The priest smiled and stepped outside.
There was beyond the house a modest stretch of garden. It was in the midst of this that he planted his shooting stick. Having opened the thing up he managed to settle himself in its nook in a fashion that was almost comfortable.
This achieved, he did as he had said he would do and waited. As a young man, he would certainly have smoked in order to while away the time but he had long since given up on the habit. He tried simply to remain in the present, to think neither of the evil memories of the past nor of his concerns for the future. In this, however, as had almost always been the case in his long life, he failed. For several hours he lost himself in unwise thoughts before, shortly after noon, the strangers came to see him.
III
The house was set back from the road and the garden secluded so it was not possible for the old priest to watch for arrivals. Yet he sat very still, listened and waited. When the sun was at its peak, he heard the click of the garden gate and the tread of unfamiliar feet upon the ground. Whoever they were they were unusually stealthy for he had not heard their approach until then. They were quiet amongst themselves too for the priest had heard no hint of conversation.
Would assassins make such an arrival? He thought this rather unlikely for all of their noiselessness. And then would killers really saunter into his garden on a brisk, clear afternoon and call out his name as they did so?
“Reverend Woodgrove?”
The old priest looked over at his visitors. He had not heard his name spoken in an English voice for a long while. The speaker was a young woman who had yet to see her twenties. She had a pleasant but purposeful air. The figure at her side was, at least at first glance, more unusual. He (or perhaps she) was short, coming up only to the hips of the lady, and excessively muffled in a multitude of scarves, a balaclava and a set of tinted goggles such as might be worn to evade the glare of the snow. The day was a cold one yet still such garb seemed excessive.
The priest did not move but raised a hand in greeting. If this were to be the last conversation of his life (a possibility which he had by now, in any case, largely discounted), he was determined not to lose his good manners. “I am he,” he said. “I gather that you’re new to the village.”
The woman and her companion had stopped by the garden gate. They seemed oddly nervous. “That’s right,” she said.
Dear me, thought the priest. She was scarcely more than a child. Where were her family? Where were those who ought to keep her safe?
“And what has brought you here?”
“We came looking for you,” she said.
The priest beckoned them forwards. “Come closer then. Both of you.”
The girl walked towards him now, the little shuffling figure at her side moving at a slower pace. She reached down to take the person’s hand to help them, and as they approached, the Reverend Woodgrove thought that there was something appealing, something sweet in the moment. No killers, then, he decided. At least not for today.
“Who are you?” he asked when they reached his side.
“My name is Coral Mayfield.”
“I’m afraid I’ve not heard of you, my dear,” he said gently. “Ought I have done?”
“Oh, I’m nobody important. But I’ve heard of you.”
“You have?”
“I read your name in the newspapers. I was looking in the libraries and found that you were there… back in Ratcliffe… that you met a man called Moreau.”
The name hung heavily between them.
“You’d better come in,” Woodgrove said at last. “You’d better come in. You must be hungry. I’ll ask my housekeeper to make us some luncheon. And you must tell me everything you know and why you’ve come all this way to see me. But before then…” He stopped and glanced at Coral’s companion. “Please. Won’t you introduce us?”
Coral turned to the figure by her side. “He’s shy,” she said.
“And he must be very hot,” said the priest. “Beneath all of that. Whatever the trouble is, I’ve seen many strange things in my long life. I will not judge. Nor will I breathe a word. And, Miss Mayfield, you are amongst friends here.”
Coral reached down and took the goggles away from her companion. Fierce, bright blue eyes looked out now at the Reverend Woodgrove. Next she removed his balaclava and then, peeling them away one by one, his multitude of scarves.
The truth was revealed, piece by piece, the gradual emergence of a most unusual face, simian in aspect, profusely furred but with a quality of humanity which shone out, a legacy of what Woodgrove took to be a most complicated hybridity. The creature looked up at the old priest and gave a toothy smile. He giggled.
“He’s very beautiful,” Woodgrove said.
“He’s my son,” Coral said proudly. “Or rather, I think of him as my son. I’ve always called him Arthur, though I don’t suppose that’s right.”
“Coral and Arthur,” said the old priest as he rose laboriously to his feet, his legs complaining at the imposition. “I think you’d better both come inside, don’t you?”
IV
“You really have done astonishingly well, my dear.”
The Reverend Woodgrove sat at the table, opposite the young woman, the remains of the luncheon spread out before them. In the garden could be heard the shrieks and hollers of the little boy and of Madame Proulx, who were now playing hide and seek. The Frenchwoman, after some initial bemusement, had taken a great shine to the little creature, a result which surprised the old priest not at all.
Coral nodded. “Yes, I think I have,” she said simply for her mother had taught her ever to avoid the easy lie of false modesty. “I know I’ve kept him safe and warm and dry and fed. But I want to do more.”
“What more can there be?” Woodgrove asked. His wine glass was still half full. He sipped slowly and thoughtfully.
“I want to know his story,” said the girl. “No. More than that. When he’s of age, I want him to know his own story. I want to know where he’s come from. I want to know if there are others like him. I believe somehow, in my heart, that there are.” She leaned forwards in her seat. There was an intensity in her eyes which Woodgrove found disconcerting.
“You may, my dear, be heading along a most dangerous path. One which will change you both.”
“I know that I am.”
From outside: the frantic pleasure-filled cries of Arthur, who had evidently been discovered by Madame Proulx.
“You think that there is a connection to the man I knew… to Moreau?”
“I do. The dying man in my mother’s house mentioned that name. I found it later in a newspaper archive. As far as I can tell, you’re the last man alive who knew him.”
“Not quite, I think,” the old priest said. “Not quite. There was a man called Prendick too. But he passed away not long ago. An accident, I think.”
Laughter and merriment drifted in from the garden, in vivid contrast to the trajectory of the old priest’s thoughts.
“Could you not just keep the boy safe? Wait till he’s grown up. Surely this investigation of yours can be left till then?”
Coral shook her head. The intensity had yet to leave her eyes. “I don’t believe it can. I think that something is happening now. Something bad. Something which you suspect too.”
“You’re very perceptive,” Woodgrove said. “I’ve no doubt the good Lord gave you that perception as a gift. But why? That is the question, is it not? To what end?” He stopped speaking then, thinking instead of a conversation in a churchyard a decade and a half ago, and the ominous dreams which had ensued.
“I’m not a patient person,” Coral said, returning Woodgrove’s attention to the present. “I need to know. And if there are others like little Arthur I need to help them too.”
“On your own?” asked Woodgrove.
The young woman shrugged. “If necessary.”
Suddenly, the old priest felt thoroughly afraid for her. He felt a spasm of shame too, for had he not just run away when faced with a similar opportunity? Had he not chosen the anonymity of a continental retirement over a chance to stand up for what was right?
“Stay here,” he said quickly. “Both of you. We’ll look after you. You can raise the child, in seclusion. We’ll do it together. The three of us. I am sure that I could persuade Madame Proulx. She is the best of women, you know.”
Coral seemed to consider the proposal. “Thank you. But no.”
The priest must have looked disconsolate at this, because the girl said swiftly: “But we’ll visit. We’ll come back.”
“Promise?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. I feel a strong sensation that I have a great deal of cowardly years to make up for.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. But is there anything at all that you can do to help us now?”
The Reverend Woodgrove finished his wine. He listened to the sounds of the game from outside. What he said next might sign his own death warrant. Yet he spoke on. “Perhaps there’s something. Or rather someone. A former pupil now in a high place. He might be able to help. But I think that what you have to discover is the exact location of what I understand to have been a rather remarkable island.”