Spirit of Lost Angels (29 page)

‘You’ll have food in the kitchen again,’ I said to Pauline and Adélaïde. ‘And linen and blankets. Even new beds.’

‘Ducks and hens too?’ Pauline, said, clapping her hands in excitement.

I nodded. ‘And you’ll have your horses, pigs, cows and sheep,’ I said to Léon, who couldn’t stop grinning. ‘We’ll rebuild the stables, the granary …’

‘But, Victoire, however can you — ?’

I held up a hand. ‘I said not to ask me about that. The funds are my business. You just get to work, we’ll need a long list of things to order.’

‘And make plans for the new inn!’ Adélaïde said her eyes bright for the first time since I’d arrived back in Lucie.

‘We will also need firewood, candles and cooking fat for the winter,’ I went on. ‘Work shall start as soon as spring arrives.’

‘You’ll stay here on the farm now, Victoire with me … with us?’ Léon said, his cheeks turning crimson. ‘After all, this is your home. This is where you belong.’

‘Our brother never took another wife,’ Pauline blurted out.

Léon glared at his sister but Pauline carried on. ‘He always said you were the only one.’

‘I am not doing this for Léon,’ I said. ‘But for the memory of his good father, and what we once had together, but I suppose it is easier if I am here … purely to oversee the work, of course.’

***

My dear Madam Wollstonecraft,

Please excuse my lapse in correspondence, since my first letter when I arrived back in Lucie.

The farm and inn renovations have occupied me, banishing much of the heaviness that sat like a stone in my breast after the death of my dear friend at Versailles — a similar melancholy to the one you describe as your own enemy.

The women marchers are proud of what we did, and I am pleased to report that in the first issue of
Les Etrennes Nationales des Dames
, Marie De Vuigneras — the brave woman who wrote a grievances booklet — hailed the women of Paris for proving they are as courageous and enterprising as men.

“We suffer more than men who, with their declarations of rights, leave us in the state of inferiority and, let us be truthful, of the slavery in which they have kept us so long,” she said. “If there are husbands aristocratic enough in their households to oppose the sharing of patriotic honours, we shall use the arms we have just employed with such success against them.”

Our rebuilding work here began three months ago and is almost complete. We hired many workers and spent a pleasant spring surrounded by hammering, jovial shouts, and people whistling the infectious song, which has become the rage of the whole country:

Ah! Ca ira! Ca ira! Ca ira!

Les aristocrates à la lanterne,

Ah! Ca ira! Ca ira! Ca ira!

Les aristocrates on les pendra!

The inn looks splendid, with its whitewashed walls and exposed beams, and we have many guests for whom I cook and make jam, spirits, cheese and bread. I burst with gladness and pride as I see
L’Auberge des Anges
restored to its former grandeur.

Thankfully, The Great Fear that swept France after the Bastille fell last year quickly petered out into oblivion, the panic disappearing as swiftly as it came. And, despite this bloody revolution in which our country is gripped, we do feel relatively safe in our beds here in Lucie.

Because the Assembly needs money to bolster finances, it has issued bonds called
assignats
, representing Church lands, to patriots who wish to acquire them in return for ready cash. Later, when the actual land and property is distributed, we can exchange the
assignats
for the land. So, under this scheme, I shall purchase the quaint estate of a bishop with the view of setting up a theatre company this coming summer. My enthusiasm has propelled me into penning another script, which speaks of the health of the woman’s mind — a subject that you can understand is close to my heart.

I do hope you will grace us with a visit when you finally decide to cross the Channel.

As you see, I am glad to have the liberty to take back my true name.

With the honour to be your friend,

Victoire Charpentier

Quiet footsteps approached from behind. I knew who it was. After six months of nourishment, work and easy sleep, Léon was once more the sun-bronzed, muscular man. His earthy smells set my nostrils quivering, as I felt his hands on my shoulders.

‘How well you write, Victoire. How much you seem to know about everything.’

‘I have read books,’ I said, my back still turned. ‘Many books. Also, the people are so very different in Paris. They hanker to know about everything; to talk of things besides cattle, crops and the latest rumour. They want to know about life beyond our world.’

‘Yes, you are worldly now; so different from the people of Lucie,’ Léon said with a wry smile. ‘They could hardly believe their eyes, to see such a transformation, especially as they imagined you still in the asylum.’

‘Oh I know that! They didn’t even try to hide their suspicion, their wariness, in the beginning, did they?’

‘Forgive them,’ Léon said. ‘They have accepted you, welcomed you into their arms again.’

‘But it took them six months,’ I said. ‘Six months of proving I was rid of the madness, and sane enough to restore an entire farm.’

Léon held my chin in his hand, lifting my face to his. ‘For that, I am eternally grateful, but please, forgive me too. Now come on, it’s late and time to sleep.’

The brown eyes brightened, inviting, but my pulse didn’t gallop with yearning, my loins remained cold and no shivers of lust twitched my shoulders.

I shook my head, just enough for Léon to understand.

He dropped my chin and rubbed a palm across his brow. ‘I hoped now, perhaps ….’

He stared out into the soft darkness folding across the countryside. ‘I thought, now it’s coming warmer, we might go to the river together? We could go to our special place. You remember it, don’t you?’

‘Of course I remember.’

‘We’ll swim again; catch trout with our bare hands. At least we’ll not be breaking any laws now.’

‘That never stopped us, eh?’ I said. ‘But you know how I feel about the Vionne River.’

‘I will be with you. You see, you’ll be all right with me.’

‘Perhaps one day, but it still fills me with such dread. I cannot think of going near it after …’

Léon sighed. ‘It’s not the river, is it? It is me you don’t want to be with. I am sure I will go to my grave without your pardon.’

‘It is not a simple matter of forgiveness,’ I said, taking his hands in mine.

‘It is something much more … things I cannot explain, and I don’t even understand myself. Well, anyway … since my return, you know I have been working on the play for this summer, but I also decided I would write about my life. I do not know if it’s interesting enough for anyone to want to read, and it is not a story I can talk about, but one I can readily lend to paper. I am certain it will help if I can … if I can write it all out of me — the twins, the asylum, what I tried to do at river.’

‘And I would learn to read if only to know that story,’ Léon said. ‘I know the first part, naturally, but you say so little about when you left, and your life in Paris. It’s as if I hardly know you.’

‘Well if I had stayed in Lucie,’ I said, releasing his hands, ‘and never gone to the asylum, I wouldn’t have been inspired to write. I would not have spoken the English, or even the French, language, or learned the ways of the middle or noble classes. I’d never have acquired such an education at the Palais-Royal, on the streets and in the salons. And I certainly would never have stormed the Bastille.’

I reached up and touched Léon’s cheek, my fingertips lingering on his weathered skin.

‘So, by some quirk of destiny, rather than forgive, it seems I have a lot to thank you for.’

I lay on my bed and watched the autumn dawn come clear, the orange glow spreading across the horizon above Mont Blanc’s snowy helmet. It was still a strange feeling, two years after my return to Lucie, lying in the bed I’d shared with Armand, thinking of all that had happened since that time I had so yearned for Léon. How ironic that our love might now have flourished if the soil hadn’t dried up; if the roots hadn’t rotted beneath us.

I thought of Jeanne too, still poisoning the Queen with her words, as the sky came alight and the farm rose to life. I heard Madeleine’s joyful squeals, in the kitchen with Pauline and Adélaïde, the cows lowing to be milked, a pig grunting and the dogs’ occasional barks — the start of a typical day.

I splashed water on my face, ran a brush through my hair and caught it up under a cap. I brewed coffee, ate some bread and cheese, and sat at my desk.

The birds carolling beyond my window, butterflies quivering, I dipped my quill into the ink. I began writing the latest chapter of my memoirs, trying to recall each event, every different person who had moulded me, like soft clay, into the person I’d become.

When I finished, I blew on the ink and placed the pages on top of the pile.

‘Letter for you,’ Léon said, as I stashed my papers in the carved wooden chest Grégoire had made for my writing things.

I smiled as I recognised Claudine’s writing — a smirk that died on my lips as I read her terrible words.

My dear Victoire,

It is some months since I have written and I hope this letter finds you well, my child.

Everyone in Paris is talking of a piece of news in The Chronicle and I felt you would want to know immediately.

It was reported that on August 23 of this year, 1791, Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, Countess de la Motte, died after falling from the balcony of her London hotel room. She was buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Lambeth, on August 26.

Some say she met her death by accident, others believe she was killed by royalists, and still others are convinced she was trying to escape debt collectors.

Of course, there is the other rumour too — that it is someone else buried in St. Mary’s and the countess has simply disappeared.

Whatever the case, I suppose we will never know the truth about that mysterious woman!

Jeanne dead! It seemed impossible. She had always struck me as too clever, too good for something as banal as death. The grief settled like lead on my breastbone, as I continued reading.

I am well pleased to hear you still bask in the success of your new theatre company and that your plays are enjoyed by a wide audience. Such a great chance you are giving the villagers of Lucie, especially the women, of pursuing new and exciting actress lives. And, as you say, it cannot be a bad thing that brings visitors, and money, to a village in these difficult times.

Your ever loyal friend,

Claudine

I did not learn the truth about my dear friend until three years later. When the letter arrived, I cried out in surprise.

My dear Victoire,

In the pursuit of your success as the Scarlet Enchantress, I am not sure you have time for a thought for your old friend.

I think of you often, and the days we spent together at that unique Parisian establishment. You must be glad that bloody revolution is, finally, over. Not that the Queen can harm us any longer,
n’est-ce pas
? Ha!

Contrary to the Queen’s, my head remains firmly on my shoulders. True, I was injured, and incapacitated for some time, after an unfortunate accident, but I am now healthy and happy, living a peaceful existence in a cottage on the shores of the Crimea.

The people here are charming, the men especially, and we all have such fun when I amuse them with my tales of masked balls, jewel thieves and daring prison escapes!

I do hope to see you again one day,
ma chère
Victoire. Time and events have cruelly separated us for too long.

Your dear and sincere friend,

Jeanne

I laughed aloud as I folded the letter.

‘Ah yes, my friend … too clever for death.’

***

The summer sun painted the countryside in rich shades of green and blue, white clouds drew bold gestures in the sky and everybody on la place de l’Eglise laughed and chatted, celebrating the death of Robespierre.

The scent of pies and cakes drifted from the baker’s oven, the smell of fresh fruit and sizzling sausages rippling on the soft air. The blacksmith’s son played a flute, his brother juggled, and Madeleine chased about with the other children and the yapping dogs.

The girl who stepped down from a carriage stood still amidst the crowd. I stared at her, and my hand flew to my heart when I saw the necklace she wore was an angel, carved from bone. A few years older, but it was the same girl I had seen the night the Bastille fell — the child I had so desperately tried to find.

I think the girl became aware of me, because she smiled and took a step towards me, her hair curling in pleats, like the tug of wind on the river.

‘
Bonjour
, madame,’ she said. ‘My name is Rubie Charpentier. I’ve come here to find my mother.’

She too, must have noticed the resemblance — the same small features and heart-shaped face rimmed in hair the hue of chestnuts — and understood who I was, because her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply.

Neither of us moved or spoke at first, and I reached for her hand.

***

In the shade of a willow, we sat together on a rock beside my favourite spot on the Vionne River — the place where the water cascades over a stony ridge into a wide, deep pool.

Over the gentle rush of the water and the
tick-tick
of insects, the air hummed with my timorous expectation. But it was not uncomfortable, as if we’d always sat here — my daughter and I — and it was the most natural thing.

‘How did you find me, Rubie?’

‘With the letter you left in my basket,’ she said, without a speck of scorn or accusation in her voice. ‘That is how I knew my name and who I was. I had wondered for a long time about you — the mother who left me this.’ She fingered the angel pendant, turning it over in her small hand. ‘Finally I found someone to read the letter to me. Then I went to the rue du Bac, knocking on all the doors, and met Claudine.’

‘How is my friend?’

‘She’s old, but her health is good. She sends her love and hopes you are well. She and her charming husband were kind, taking me in. She cooked delicious meals, said I needed fattening up, and gave me money for the fare to Lucie.’

‘Yes, she helped me too,’ I said with a smile.

I hesitated, unsure I truly wanted to hear the truth, which could be nothing but grim, but I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to know everything about my lost child.

‘What about before, Rubie? Before Claudine took you in?’

Rubie’s eyes clouded, and she looked across the water bubbling across the stones, folding over ferns, twigs and errant flower heads as if taking them on a whim, not quite knowing why.

Perepp, perepp, pereep
, a bird sang.
Coop, coop, coop
,
another answered, each note clear and defined.

‘I was too young to remember before Madame Coudray,’ she said. ‘But she took children into her big house in an alley near the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.’

‘I know that place. I went there, several times. To think I was so close …’

‘Madame Coudray really did try, but she had so many young ones to care for, and a drunkard husband who would knock her to the ground, so she was ill sometimes and found it hard to look after all of us. But I got to sleep on a mattress with the other girls, not on the floor, and we were warm … mostly.’ She spoke rapidly, hardly taking a breath, as if getting it all out at once would mask the bleak truth. ‘Well, sometimes it was a bit chilly in winter, but not too many of the little ones died, only about three or four each year.’

Mon Dieu
. I could picture the swarm of children lying on the straw, dirty, undernourished and huddling together to leech out the slightest bit of human warmth from the next person — like my la Salpêtrière prison dormitory. The breeze brought a gust of coolness to my face, and the guilt prickled me again.

‘I’m so sorry, Rubie, I never wanted you to live like that. I truly had no choice. The Marquis would have thrown us both on the street. We’d both have died — ’

‘I know,’ she said, laying a hand on my forearm — this sensitive girl who had everything to blame me for, and nothing for which to thank me. She squeezed my arm, as if it was I who needed comfort and reassurance. ‘But it truly wasn’t so bad, Mam — ’

She stopped, a smile curving her lip. ‘I practised saying “Maman” with Claudine, but should I call you that?’

I took her hand — a rough, scarred little hand that revealed all she was reticent to tell me — and brought it to my lips. ‘I am not certain I deserve such a title, Rubie but I’d be … I’d be honoured.’

‘That’s good then, Maman.’ She smiled, as if pleased at the sound of it. ‘So, as I was saying it was really not too bad. I had friends — Louise and Belle. We were always together, sharing our secrets, and one day we decided poor Madame Coudray really did have too many children, so we ran away.’

‘Ran away? And lived on the streets?’ I recalled, with horror, the filthy beggar children who skulked in the dankest alleyways of the capital, and under bridges, with drunk old men.

‘It was not easy at first, but we got used to it. Louise became an expert at getting food and clothes for us. Belle always seemed to have a lump of firewood to keep us warm. I was the best pick-pocket of us all.’ Rubie laughed, but her grey-green eyes seemed heavy with the memories of all the tricks and ploys she’d been forced to master to survive.

‘Where are your friends now, Louise and Belle?’ I kept reminding myself to slow down, not to overwhelm Rubie with my eagerness to know everything at once.

‘Gone,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Dead from some sickness or other … I don’t know what.’

She turned her face to the sunlit crowns of the Monts du Lyonnais that blanched the blue from the sky. I knew she was trying to hide her pain and I yearned to fold her in my arms and squeeze away the ache and hardship of fifteen years.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, my hand reaching across, gently, tentatively sweeping loose strands of hair from her face. ‘I hope you will make many new friends here in Lucie. You would like to stay
n’est-ce pas
, Rubie?’

She nodded. ‘That would be nice, Maman, if it is what you want.’

‘Of course! Nothing would delight me more than to have you here with me, and with your half-sister, Madeleine. She’s a sweet girl and will love you.

‘I imagine Claudine told you about your father?’ I said, not sure I could bear to hear more about her childhood.

‘I’m glad to say I no longer have a father,’ Rubie said. ‘I would not have wanted one like him, anyway, even if he had survived the revolution.’

‘The Marquis is dead?’

The breeze strengthened, rustling the willow leaves, and a crow flapped away, cawing a bleak
ark, ark, ark
.

‘He and his silly wife,’ Rubie said. ‘Claudine told me they fled Paris, just after the Bastille fell.’

‘Yes … yes, I knew that.’

‘Their countryside estate was attacked and burned down during
la Grande Peur
,’ Rubie went on. ‘They returned to Paris in disguise but someone recognised them — the sister of a scullery maid the Marquis had burned at the stake. They were both guillotined, without a trial.’

I stifled my laugh. The Marquis’s death was possibly the only one I could celebrate. I had long since gained my revenge through satire and personal success, but there was nothing like death, for ultimate vengeance. And I was pleased poor Margot had finally reaped her own, albeit posthumous, revenge.

‘The Marquis de Barberon was not a father to be proud of, Rubie.’

‘I do not care a bit. I have a mother I’m proud of.’

‘Proud of
me
?’

‘Claudine told me about the Scarlet Enchantress, and how she made a success of herself, even though the odds were against her. I only wish I could read the plays.’

‘I’d love to teach you to read and write,’ I said, feeling almost dizzy with the joy, the gladness, and realisation, in that instant, for whom I’d penned my memoirs. ‘That’s if you’d like me to?’

‘Oh yes, I would like it very much. Claudine told me about my grandmother too,’ she went on. ‘Your mother, and how she was a midwife. It seems such a noble profession. I would like to become a midwife too … one day.’

‘But you shall, Rubie! You will do whatever you want.’ I couldn’t stop smiling, and I saw my mother again, bustling about the village, birthing babies and tending the sick. I recalled sitting on her lap, her smell of musk and lavender in my nostrils, as she read from
Les Fables de Jean de la Fontaine
, and following each magical word and dreaming of princesses and fortune. ‘Your grandmother would be so pleased to know your wish.’

As the sun poured down onto the countryside, we were quiet — a small span of moments in which I felt the passionate happiness of which I’d only dreamed.

I stood, brushing leaves and bits of dirt from my skirt. ‘You must be thirsty, hungry and tired, and there’s so much to show you. And you must meet Madeleine and your cousins, and see your new home —
L’Auberge des Anges
. There’s my theatre company too, and the village, and oh, everything!’

I reached across and took hold of the angel pendant resting against her pale skin, my fingertip tracing the halo, the wings, the streaming gown. I rubbed the carving, the old bone warming beneath my thumb and forefinger.

‘I prayed this angel would keep you safe on your journey, Rubie.’

‘So it did, Maman.’

‘It sent you the force of all those who wore it before you — the spirit of the women of
L’Auberge des Anges
.’

‘What kind of bone is it?’ Rubie asked.

‘Oh, probably seal or ox, or walrus tusk, or perhaps even mammoth bone.’

‘Mammoth! How thrilling.’

As Rubie laughed, I felt the angel burning my fingertips, branding me with the energy of all those who had left my world. The spirits of angels lost, but never gone.