"Yes," Erik whispered with horror. "But why—why would they hurt me? I haven't done any harm. Why do they all hate me?"
The priest spread his hands uncomfortably.
"Men hate the things they fear… and they fear those things which they do not understand."
Erik touched the mask hesitantly. "My face"—he faltered—"they hate me because of my face?"
Father Mansart took his arm. "Come, child, let us pray. We shall ask God to grant you patience and understanding—"
"No!" Erik pulled away from his grasp abruptly. "I'm not going to pray anymore! Why should I? God doesn't listen to me."
"Erik!" I gasped. "You will apologize to Father Mansart immediately and beg God's forgiveness for such terrible blasphemy."
He was stubbornly silent.
"Go to your room," I said icily. "I will deal with your disobedience later."
There was an appalled silence when he had left us. I sank into the hearthside chair and stared at the priest.
"What can we do?" I breathed.
"He must not be allowed to leave the house again," said Father Mansart, after a moment. "I will return later to board up his window and place bolts on his door."
"Board up his window…" I echoed wretchedly. "Must I now shut him up in a room without natural light?"
"I fear there is no other way to protect him," the priest said sadly.
That night there was a great disturbance outside in the road, a crowd of village boys throwing stones and shouting obscene abuse. I was so furious that in spite of the priest's warnings, I threw open my bedroom window and challenged them.
"Go away!" I screamed. "Go away and leave me and my son in peace!"
"Bring out the monster!" they chanted rudely, in response. "Bring out the monster and let us see him, lady."
A clod of filth struck me on the cheek. I heard the sound of a downstairs window smashing and held my breath with terror as someone began kicking the front door.
"Be off with you!" stormed Father Mansart's voice from a little distance down the road. "You young devils! I promise you this night will earn you penances enough to keep you on your knees for a month! Yes… I know your names… every one of you! Be off, I say!"
The voices grew fainter and less belligerent as their owners skulked away into the falling dusk.
Running down the narrow staircase, I wrenched open the front door and buried my face against the priest's habit.
"Oh, Father! I thought they were going to break into the house and take him!"
"I don't think they would dare to go that far, my dear, but certainly I couldn't answer for what they would do if they caught him wandering alone. Is he safe upstairs?"
I nodded.
"Good. I shall remove the glass from his window and fit a bolt at the top and bottom of his door. I think that will contain him… indeed, it may well be that after tonight he will be too frightened to try to escape again."
"What is to become of him?" I whispered in despair. "What in God's name will become of him?"
"It is not for us to foresee the future," replied the priest evasively. "I will go to him now, if I may. I rather think I shall find him ready to pray once more by now."
I tried to smile, faintly. "You have forgiven him his blasphemy, then?"
He made a philosophical gesture.
"If that is all that heaven is ever required to forgive in him we shall be fortunate indeed," he said.
And taking the candle from my nerveless hand, he lit his way to the top of the silent house without another word.
On Sunday I walked down into the village with Marie, to shame the parents of our tormentors. It was some years now since I had worshiped in the magnificent abbey of St-Georges-de-Boscherville. Content to hear Mass like an invalid in the privacy of my own home, I had allowed myself increasingly to assume the habits of a recluse. And I began to see that there was perhaps some justification for the general belief that a madwoman and a monster inhabited the secluded house on the outskirts of the village. I must not continue to hide away like a mole in its burrow; I must show that I was prepared to fight for our right to be left in peace.
Throughout the service I was aware of heads turning furtively in my direction. A muted whispering permeated the sermon, and even the priest's steely gaze was not sufficient to quell it. My resolve trembled and I had a horrible urge to run out of the old church, but still I sat there stiffly, with my gloved hands folded over my prayer book, willing the service to come to an end.
"
Ite missa est
…" said Father Mansart at merciful length; and as the congregation shuffled to its feet I avoided the communal gaze by staring fixedly at the cherubs which decorated the transept.
Following Marie into the nave, I dropped my prayer book in my agitation, and the reverberating thud echoed unnaturally loud up into the vaulted roof. My glance went automatically to the gallery, and in the suffused light from the clerestory window I saw the figure of a young man looking down on me thoughtfully.
He made a formal little bow when he realized that I had seen him, and the unfamiliar courtesy of his gesture covered me with confusion. I had forgotten how to respond to such gestures in my years of solitude, forgotten how to play the simpering, empty-minded coquette. I felt extremely uncomfortable, and yet it was very hard to break that first revealing moment of eye contact.
"Who is that man?" I asked Marie, as we walked out into the fierce sunlight which was bathing the village green.
She smiled. "That is the new doctor, M. Barye."
"How long has he been in Boscherville?"
"About two months. But they say he will not stay. I believe he has very few patients because everyone still prefers to call in Doctor Gautier."
"How stupid!" I said, rather more sharply than I had meant to. "Doctor Gautier was in his dotage ten years ago —the man must be eighty at least."
Marie shrugged. "Well, you know what the village is. Mama says she would never dream of being examined by such a young man and she most certainly would not permit him to attend me."
"What does your mama suggest the young man do in the meantime? Is he to starve in the gutter until his beard turns gray?"
"Hush!" said Marie urgently. "He's coming out, he'll hear you."
Against all the instincts of good breeding I turned to look and found the young man's eyes once more fixed upon mine. Again he made that elegant little bow and bade us a good morning before going on his way with obvious reluctance.
Marie took my arm and with one accord we began to hurry down the road, away from his retreating figure. Suddenly, inexplicably, I found myself giggling, like the silly, frivolous creature I had once been; suddenly I was back in the convent, halfheartedly denying my interest in a handsome singing master.
"But of course I don't care for him, not a bit, not a bit…"
Seventeen once more, a pert little butterfly testing her wings after the restrictive, chrysalis years of a strict Catholic upbringing. Seventeen and ready to devour life in one eager greedy swallow…
The dusty, sunbaked road outside my house swam abruptly back into my vision and the sun winked on the new pane of glass that Erik had fitted into the dining room window. Eight years old and already he was as swift and efficient on simple tasks as the best workman in the village.
Why did I have the guilty feeling that I was about to commit the ultimate betrayal of his trust?
Etienne!
Etienne Barye! How quickly it happened!
How quickly he changed from the urbane young doctor who greeted me with such studied civility every Sunday after Mass; how quickly he became the brightest star in my dark and empty sky.
Within a few short weeks it seemed to me that I thought of nothing but him and that time was measured by the deadly length of hours which separated our secret assignations. For eight years I had lived like a nun; perhaps it was inevitable that I should fall in love with the first handsome man to look on me once more with desire.
He knew my history, of course. There were only too many eager to relate the grisly details in the hope of sparing a good-looking young man the curse of my kiss. Stubbornly he ignored the warnings of doom and continued to present himself each Sunday at the end of my pew. I would place my hand upon his sleeve and sweep down the nave, displaying haughty indifference and defiance to those who watched with disapproval.
He was younger than I, with firm, well-sculptured features and eyes that were inclined to stare with scorn at people he despised. And he despised most of Boscherville, dismissing its inhabitants as provincial and bigoted. The few patients he had managed to acquire were soon irritated by his arrogant and rather abrasive manner and his association with me ensured that he added no more to his practice. I myself quickly learned to defer to his opinions, finding our time together too precious to be wasted in argument. I lived in constant fear that he would abandon what he referred to as "this tedious little backwater" and return to do research in Paris. His restless intelligence and intolerant impatience were far better suited to the laboratory than the drawing room of a querulous patient. It was only a question of time before he came to accept that himself.
He was insatiably curious about Erik, asking me deep and probing questions and often making notes of my replies. His interest, he assured me, was purely scientific; he wished to build up a case study. Repeatedly he asked to see the child, but that, for many reasons, I would not permit. At the back of my mind an uneasy feeling was growing that he would not hesitate to pin Erik to a dissecting table in order to satisfy his curiosity.
"Madeleine," he chided gently, as I increasingly shied away from his persistent inquiries, "you must not be so suspicious of the scientific mind. I thought you trusted me."
I looked away. I was growing to love the man, but I did not trust the scientist; I feared the lust for knowledge that lurked like a ravening wolf in his cool blue eyes.
Rising from his sofa, I walked away to the window, staring out at the village green and the old church which towered to the sky just beyond.
"You ask too many questions," I murmured.
"Of course!" He tossed the notebook aside and came to stand beside me, throwing off the impersonal, clinical manner like a soiled apron. "Insatiable curiosity is not a very attractive quality I'm afraid. Forgive me, Madeleine."
His hand was insistent on my arm, but I did not turn to look at him.
"Sometimes I think all you want from me is answers." I sighed.
He turned me slowly around until I faced him.
"Not all," he said.
And kissed me.
"Who is that man?" Erik demanded abruptly.
He was waiting for me in the hall as I let myself into the house, and there was a hard accusing look in his eyes as he stared at me.
"Who is that man?" he repeated stonily, when I failed to answer. "Why does he walk with you alone?"
It was almost four months since I first met Etienne, but I had been very careful that Erik should not see us together. Obviously tonight I had not been careful enough.
"If I choose to walk with a man it is no concern of yours!" I retorted angrily.
Hanging up my cloak, I made to walk past him, but he blocked my path to the drawing room and suddenly I knew a moment of intense fear. He stood as high as my shoulder now and was deceptively strong in spite of his skeletal frame.
"Who is he, Mother?"
It was the first time he had ever used that word to address me, and the contempt in his voice was quite terrifying.
"His name is Etienne," I found myself saying breathlessly. "Etienne Barye… he is a doctor. Now, let me pass, Erik. I will not be questioned in this tiresome and impertinent manner. I…"
My voice wavered to a halt as he continued to stare at me coldly.
"He is a friend," I stammered. "You must understand,
Erik, that I have a perfect right to have friends like anyone else in the village."
He made a movement toward me and instinctively I took a defensive step back.
"I do not wish this friendship to continue," he told me inexorably.
The eyes behind the mask were like gimlets; I had never seen him look at me like this before. I retreated down the hall until I felt my back against the front door, but still he advanced toward me with curious, unchildlike menace. I struck out at him, in sudden fear, but after that first hesitant blow, rage overwhelmed my apprehension at his unspoken threat.
"You!" I screamed. "You do not wish? How dare you speak to me like this! You ruined my life the day you were born—ruined it…
ruined
it! I hate you, I hate the very sight and sound of you… your devil's face and your angel's voice! There are plenty of angels in hell, did you know that? I wish to God you were there with them, where you belong. I wish you were dead, do you hear me? I wish you were dead!"
He seemed to shrink, almost to shrivel, in front of my eyes. Whatever he might have been a few seconds before, he was only a child now, recoiling in disbelief from a punishment beyond his worst imagination. It was as though all the ugly emotion that had been festering between us since his birth had erupted into a single, massive boil and finally burst, drowning us both in its poison. And I knew, as I looked at his crushed misery, that he would carry those words with him to his grave. Nothing I could say or do would ever wash their corrosive stain from his mind.
As I hovered beside him, unable to express my grief and remorse, he suddenly took his hands away from the mask and stared at me with a wretchedness that was utterly beyond tears.
"I hate you too," he said with slow, pained surprise, as though it was something that had only now been revealed to him. "I hate you too."
And turning away from me, he groped his way slowly up the stairs like a blind child.
Erik did not speak of "the man" again. From that time he displayed complete indifference to my increasing absences, not even bothering to look up when I returned to the house. He wrapped around himself a cloak of impenetrable silence and spent most of his time working alone in his room, with only Sasha for company.