‘No, Monsieur de Dupuy de Lôme, I am not happy to stay here until the summer. It’s too far to walk to the town of Ploemeur for the provisions. Lorient was where I was taken on. If I had known I was going to end up hanging around a manor house in the depths of a forest I would have turned the job down. I have only one wish, to hand in my apron.’
‘You can’t do that to us, Hélène. Who would make our meals? The time to refuse was when we informed you we’d be coming here for part of the spring. How do you expect us to find another cook now? It’s true, we did say two weeks and now we’re staying longer but even if it is a long way for you to go for provisions – and I’m very sorry about that – it’s a pretty place. Just listen to the different varieties of birdsong, the buzzing of the bees …’
‘It’s poisonous here, the water is polluted and the air is bad.’
‘What nonsense is this? I was born in this castle twenty-five years ago and I know perfectly well there are no health hazards here.’
‘What’s going on, Stanislas-Charles?’ asked a man coming into the kitchen, alerted by the sound of raised voices.
He had a white beard along his jaw, curly like a sheep’s fleece, spiky hair swept backwards and bushy eyebrows.
His son answered, ‘It’s Hélène making one of her scenes again. Pah, I think it will be easier for me to build the first steam-powered warships and pioneer dirigible airships than ever to exercise authority over that cook. Not content with complaining about how far it is to go shopping, here she is demanding we go back to Lorient because life here is “poisonous”.’
‘It is worth noting,’ the elderly man conceded, ‘that at the beginning of the year our horses did die because of the poor quality of the water.’
‘Ah, what was I saying?’ exclaimed Thunderflower, standing opposite a sulking Stanislas-Charles, while a two-and-a-half-year-old little girl tugged at the servant’s red skirt, asking, ‘Are you cross, Godmother?’
‘Marie, stop calling her Godmother,’ said the young naval engineer in irritation. ‘She’s not your godmother, she’s the cook.’
‘She is, Uncle, she’s my godmother. Waaaa.’ The child began to cry, while her mother ran towards the cook, wanting to know what had made her child – who was wearing a white pearl-embroidered dress with a lace collar – cry.
‘Give her to me,’ she ordered her brother.
Stanislas-Charles Dupuy de Lôme got hold of his niece, who was hiding in Thunderflower’s skirts, and handed her, arms waving, to his sister, while the cook muttered, ‘A woman should never let anyone pass her child to her over a table.’
‘Why is that, Hélène?’ asked the mother.
‘It’s a sign that the child won’t last the week.’
The prediction cast a chill, which the grandfather with the fleecy chin tried to dispel. ‘Get along with you, Hélène. You moan but I’m sure that any minute now you’ll be off to get one of those plump hens you do so well, either in a fricassee or succulently spit-roasted with potatoes.’
‘If it’s not too heavy,’ the servant cautioned. ‘Otherwise I’ll get six artichokes between us and serve them with a herb vinaigrette, and that will do very nicely.’
‘Personally, I’d have liked trout,’ chimed in a bird-like grandmother, joining the others around the table. ‘Admittedly to find a fresh water one you have to go much further than Ploemeur, but—’
‘As for you, Hortense-Héloïse, don’t make things worse,’ interrupted her husband, knitting his bushy eyebrows.
‘But, Father, why shouldn’t Mother be allowed trout?’ said Stanislas-Charles angrily. ‘It’s unbelievable. Are we going to have to take orders from the cook, no longer the masters in our own home? Hélène, you will listen to me and there’s an end to it.’
‘As you wish,’ murmured the servant, only half liking her employer’s tone. ‘Fine, fine, I’ll do whatever I have to.’
‘That’s it, do whatever you have to. It will make a nice change. You can start by giving my niece her breakfast, and then off you go, shopping, double quick.’
‘Be careful, Monsieur Dupuy de Lôme. Go on playing against yourself and you’ll end up winning.’
‘And no threats either, thank you.’
Everyone left the kitchen, except for Marie, who went back to clutching Thunderflower’s skirt. ‘Will you tell me a story, Godmother?’
‘Of course, dear.’
Wearing a ruched cap, and an air of niceness for the child’s benefit, the cook had her back to her, stirring a little milk heating in a saucepan. ‘It’s the story of a king, the uncle of a princess,’ she told her. ‘He takes a handful of dust and throws it into the air; his castle falls down, with the princess in it.’
The servant left the manor house, built in the classical style, with her empty basket in her hand and curses on her lips. The early morning insects with diaphanous wings, fluttering butterflies and clear sky brought infinite variety to the delights of the landscape. The sunny day was the finest in a decade.
‘In the shentury, no doubt,’ gasped the shorter wigmaker, punching the air with his twisted arm, as they stood beside their cart stopped at the roadside.
‘Maybe we should unfasten the horses somewhere and let them dry off,’ suggested the taller, bald one. They had both aged considerably.
Mist was rising from the fields and the road leading to Ploemeur. The streams were in shade. Further on, Thunderflower passed a farmer busy undervaluing a girl who was being offered to him in marriage, in order to get a more considerable dowry: ‘She’s really ugly.’ The parents handed their eldest daughter a spade and she demonstrated her strength by digging out huge clods of earth. The peasant hesitated.
On her way back to the château de Soye, basket of artichokes on her arm, the servant spotted a small cart being pulled by some men. It was carrying a husband who had let himself be beaten by his wife. She passed a bank with plumes of yellow broom and topped with blackberries, and as soon as she entered the drawing room of the manor house, Thunderflower saw people bending over a little body lying on the floor and rushed forward, shouting in Breton, ‘Quit a ha lessé divan va anaou!’ (‘Get off the corpse – she’s mine!’)
While the naval engineer was still asking, ‘What’s that mumbo jumbo she’s saying?’ the servant dropped her basket and knelt down beside Marie, lifting her into an embrace and whispering in her ear in Celtic. ‘A bad angel made our paths cross. Tell me, at least, I’ll have lived in your heart.’ The infant put her weak arms round the cook’s neck, replying in words no one could make out. It was like the soft sighing of the waving grass, and Stanislas-Charles, uncomprehending, said in astonishment, ‘Is Marie speaking Breton?’
Thunderflower’s hands closed the eyes of the child in the pearl-embroidered dress. Her mother was prostrate on a chair.
‘To what irresistible force has she succumbed?’ lamented the grandfather. ‘When my son-in-law hears the news he’ll be in utter despair over his daughter’s death.’
The grandmother could hardly breathe. The uncle looked inside the basket, then at the cook, who was already making for the door. He caught hold of her by the sleeve. ‘You should have brought six artichokes, one for each of us, and yet you got only five. Why? You don’t like artichokes, is that it?’
‘Yes I do, but I don’t like weighing myself down unnecessarily.’
Stanislas-Charles looked her straight in the eye. ‘Hélène. What did little Marie Bréger die of today, 30 May 1841, at the age of two-and-a-half?’
‘You’re asking me that, when I was away on an errand when my godchild collapsed?’
‘She was not your godchild. She was my good niece, when she was alive.’
‘That’s one person fewer. Blame can go to the saucepans, which have just been recoated with tin, or the poor quality of the water here at château de Soye. Monsieur Dupuy de Lôme, your suspicions will not make me lower my eyes in shame. I won’t blush either, do you hear?’
Half demented, the child’s mother got to her feet and began to sing. She was filled with the joy of the Church and lit household candles as if they were the tall candles of an altar.
‘I warned you we needed to go back to Lorient,’ Thunderflower reminded them. ‘The weakest has already died, and it will be the others’ turns next. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an epidemic soon. The manor house will be left empty, just as has happened elsewhere. The cemetery at Ploemeur will be too small.’
The servant who could predict the future was standing proudly in front of a chestnut cupboard with ornately carved foliage, while all those around her were agog, hanging on her every word.
‘Mark my words. I’m warning you, if we stay here you’re all going to die.’
Stanislas-Charles gave in. ‘We’re going back.’
‘Finally …’ breathed Thunderflower. ‘The lengths you have to go to in order to be heard!’