Miramont's Ghost (16 page)

They sat in silence. Lucie did not move to comfort the girl, knowing that she would need time to absorb all the revelations of the past few hours.

Suddenly, Adrienne sat up straight and turned to Lucie, her eyes wide. “Do you think Marie knows?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

G
e
nevieve continued to stand by the window long after Lucie had disappeared down the path. She crossed her arms over her chest. She chewed her thumbnail. The clouds in the west were growing thicker, darker, like her thoughts. She had pinned all her own hopes on Adrienne and Gerard, on Adrienne’s marriage, on a move to Paris. She had wanted it, she had dreamt of it, perhaps even more than her daughter.

Marie moved to the window and stood beside her sister, both of them staring at the approaching storm. “I really don’t know how you’ve managed, all these years,” Marie sighed.

A branch scraped against the window outside. “What do you mean?”

Marie snorted, a sound that clearly judged Genevieve’s naïveté. “Someone as lovely as Lucie, right here in the same house.”

Genevieve stood completely still, her breath arrested. She did not look at Marie, but she could see her reflection, dim and gray, in the window.

“Of course, your husband is not home that often. Perhaps it isn’t anything to be concerned with.” Marie shrugged, turned, and started back to her desk.

Genevieve stared outside. She remembered that evening, just a few months ago, when Lucie and Adrienne had played for the Devereuxs. She remembered that look in Pierre’s eye, how his gaze had followed Lucie around the room.

“If it were me, though . . . I don’t know that I would have been able to tolerate such a beautiful governess in such close proximity to my husband.” Marie smiled above her papers. “But then, you are far more beautiful than I ever was.”

Marie bent her head to her accounts.

Genevieve said nothing. She continued to stare out the window, watching as the sunset flamed and faded. She twisted her thumbs, chewed her nail. She remembered when Lucie had arrived at the castle, a letter from Pierre in her handbag. She’d been so young, her skin as fresh as the first snow of winter.

Genevieve paced the floor in front of the window. She tore at her thumbnail with her teeth. She went back, in her mind, to every time she could remember Pierre coming home. She tried to recall his facial expressions, his exact words. She searched her mind for images of the governess. She tried to remember if Pierre had gone for long walks, disappeared from her presence for a time. Had he actually stayed in the bed beside her all night, or had he slipped away, left her sleeping while he cheated on her under her own roof?

She remembered every time he laughed at something Lucie said; she recalled every song that Lucie and the girls had played and sung together. She remembered every compliment Pierre had paid Lucie, every time he had praised her work. Genevieve bit her thumbnail. It bled. She paced, her heels clicking on the floor. The clock ticked. The wind gusted against the windowpanes. They rattled in response.

What had she missed? There had to be some reason Marie mentioned it, and Genevieve was determined to find it. She stopped suddenly, her brow tense. That time he had brought Gerard and his grandfather out here, to Beaulieu. She had awakened halfway through the night, when Pierre crawled back into the bed. At the time, she had thought nothing of it. She was so enraptured by all the excitement of Adrienne’s beau, of having visitors to the château, and Pierre home again. But now that moment came back, with all its burning questions. How long had he been gone? And where had he been?

Her shoulders deflated with the sudden sense of knowing. It was true, what everyone had been saying. And he had done it right under her nose. She stared out the window, suddenly furious. With Pierre, with the governess, with all the people who spread the gossip.

But more than anyone else, she was furious with herself. How could she have been such a fool?

Each of the three women was trapped, locked in the solitude of their own violent emotions. Adrienne was buried in her grief. For most of her life, she had never dared to hope, never dared to dream. She had adjusted, accepted her loneliness. She had learned to tune out the whispers of the villagers. She had learned to live with the quiet, the isolation.

But Gerard had changed all that. She had looked into his eyes, and dared to dream. Dared to hope. Dared to believe that her life could be different. She had broken free, sailed into the air, escaped from the dreariness, only to be dashed back to earth, smashed on the rocks. She felt as if she had been shattered into a million pieces, that there was no way she could ever be pieced back together again.

She could not sleep. She could not eat. Lifting her head from the pillows in the morning took all the strength and concentration she could muster. She had to force herself to breathe.

Sometimes the pain would wash over her, through her, pulling her down to a depth of despair that threatened to swallow her, like some dark ogre in a fairy tale. When that happened, she grabbed her cloak and rushed out the door. She walked as hard and as fast as she could. She wanted to pound the pain through the soles of her feet, force it from her body. She wanted to walk so hard that her body rebelled and collapsed. Until she fell, exhausted, and all feeling ceased.

Genevieve stayed in her own room, down the hall. She paced. She chewed her nails until they were ragged and bloody. She was gripped by suspicion, suspicions that grew larger and more dreadful with each passing day.

She stood before her dressing table, bent forward, and ran her fingers over the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Her skin was not as supple as it used to be, not as moist and dewy as Lucie’s. She ran her fingers through her hair, thinner now, strands of gray laced through the gold.

She hadn’t slept since that night, just a few days ago, when Lucie had run after Adrienne, the night that Marie had first mentioned the governess and her beauty. She would drift off, only to bolt awake, her heart hammering, her throat constricted. She remembered the way Pierre’s eyes had followed Lucie, the way he twirled the ends of his mustache. She remembered the fire in his eyes. How long? How long had it been going on?

Genevieve looked in her mirror again. Her eyes were deep black cauldrons of worry. The lack of sleep, lack of food, had only added to her disheveled appearance. Her hair looked like rags. She thought of the witches in the fairy tales whom she now resembled. She chafed at the thought of how she now looked, and of the unspoiled youth of the governess in her room down the hall.

Genevieve paced to the window. She watched as Adrienne disappeared into the woods, her brown cloak sailing out behind her. She knew the girl would be gone for hours. Genevieve grabbed the shawl at the end of the bed and swung it around her shoulders. She moved into the hall, her heart pounding, the veins in her neck pulsing.

She stopped at the door to Lucie’s room. She’d never done anything like this before. It was not in her nature to confront anyone. For a moment, she hesitated. Then she saw, once again, the look in Pierre’s eyes, the way his gaze traveled over Lucie’s figure. He was her husband. She had a right to protect her marriage, to protect what was hers.

The door stood open a few inches. Lucie stood at the window. Her hair was loose: thick, coffee-colored curls cascaded down her back like a deep, dark waterfall.

Genevieve pushed the door open. Lucie turned to face her. The look in the younger woman’s face was so composed and quiet, almost serene, as if she had been expecting this confrontation for years.

Genevieve cleared her throat. “Lucie . . .”

Lucie watched her.

“Lucie, I’ve . . . made a decision. The children are older now. Adrienne is grown.” Genevieve’s eyes jumped to the bed, the fireplace, the dresser. She could not look at the woman standing before her, her eyes soft and bright.

Lucie exhaled, and in that soft breath, Genevieve heard all the accusations that Lucie would never dare to say aloud: accusations about her mothering, her inability to defend her own daughter, her weakness in front of Marie, her pathetic attempts to believe in her own marriage. Lucie said nothing. But her eyes were silent pools of truth, the deep brown of the earth after a rain. There was a strength, a confidence, that Genevieve, despite all her wealth and upbringing, had never possessed. Genevieve could understand why Pierre would find the young woman so attractive, and the thought made her hurry through the lines she had rehearsed in her own mind.

Genevieve swallowed. “I don’t believe we will be needing your services any longer.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and dense, like morning fog.

Genevieve took a deep breath. “I have prepared a letter of recommendation for you. My cousin, in Bordeaux, is looking for a governess.” She stepped forward, laid the envelope on the bed cover. Her hands trembled.

“Renault will take you to the station. The train leaves at three. You will need to pack quickly to make it in time.” Genevieve’s hands shook; her throat burned as if she had swallowed acid. She stole one quick glance at the governess, and then turned and left, her heels clicking down the long hallway.

Adrienne had just reached the cemetery, had only just opened the gate and gone inside, when the vision hit her. She grabbed at the wrought-iron posts to keep from falling. She was following Marie down that same long, dark hallway. She followed her into a room. She watched as Marie pulled a valise from under her bed. This time, in this vision, Adrienne moved closer to her aunt, standing just behind her. She looked over Marie’s shoulder. She could see the valise, see the papers that Marie clutched in her hand. But in this vision, Marie wasn’t putting papers
into
the valise; she was taking them out. And something about those papers was familiar. They weren’t loose, but were part of a notebook, one Adrienne had seen before.

Adrienne’s mind flashed to a scene when she was very young, before Grand-père had died. She had been standing in the doorway to Lucie’s room, awakened by a nightmare and wanting to find her governess. Lucie was bent over her desk, her long brown braid hanging over one shoulder of her nightgown. On the corner of the desk, a candle flickered, the light dancing on Lucie’s face. Adrienne could hear the scratch of her pen; she watched as Lucie looked up from her journal and laid her pen down. Her
journal.
The same journal where Lucie had recorded every vision, every dream, every suspicion that she and Adrienne had ever discussed.

Adrienne turned and ran from the cemetery, not bothering to take the time to lock the gate. Her feet pounded out the tempo of her thoughts. It wasn’t Gerard who was in danger; it was Lucie. Adrienne ran, her boots painful on her feet as she tried to cover the distance quickly. She dropped her cloak on the floor of the great hall, raced up the stairs and down the long hall. Every step felt just as it had in her vision, following Marie. She was out of breath from her run, and choking on her own fear and dread.

The door to Lucie’s room was open slightly, and Adrienne stopped, her heart pounding. She forced herself to breathe. Silently, with two fingers, she pushed the door open. Lucie stood with her back to Adrienne. On her bed lay dresses and gloves and handkerchiefs. Lucie was sniffling quietly, tears flowing down her cheeks. She turned and looked at Adrienne, her face contorted with pain and guilt. “Oh, Adrienne! I was so afraid I wouldn’t get to see you. That I wouldn’t get to say good-bye,” she whispered.

Adrienne ran into her arms, and they held each other, crying. Adrienne was so relieved that Lucie wasn’t dead that it took her a moment to soak in everything around her. “Say good-bye? What are you talking about?” She looked over Lucie’s shoulder at the few items of clothing that Lucie owned lying across the bed.

“Your mother . . .” Lucie stopped and corrected herself. “They’re sending me away.”

“No. No.” Adrienne shook her head, unable to absorb the idea.

She looked back at the bed. There, in one corner, lay a tapestry valise. The material was thick, gold and cream and burgundy. Adrienne blinked.

In slow motion, Adrienne pulled away from the arms of her governess. She moved to the side of the bed and stared at the valise. “Where did you get that?” She whispered. “Where did you find that?”

Lucie swallowed. “It’s mine. I brought it with me when I came here. Why? What’s wrong?”