The Scapegoat (45 page)

Gaston came to the double doors and said, ‘Monsieur le Comte is wanted on the telephone.’

I got up and went through to the lobby in the hall. I lifted the old-fashioned receiver and listened.

‘Who’s there?’ I asked.

Someone said
‘Ne quittez pas’
, the line blurred and indistinct, as though it came from a distance. Then, after a minute, another voice, a man’s, said, ‘Am I speaking to the Comte de Gué?’

‘Yes,’ I answered.

There was a pause. The speaker at the other end seemed to be thinking, deciding what to say.

‘Who is it?’ I repeated. ‘What do you want?’

Then softly, almost in a whisper, the voice replied, ‘It’s me. Jean de Gué. I’ve just seen today’s newspaper. I’m coming back.’

I
nstinct denied him. Mind, body, spirit, united in revolt against him. He no longer existed. He was not real. The whisper at the other end of the telephone was imaginary, conjured up by fatigue. I waited, not answering. And then in a moment he spoke again.

‘You are there?’ he said. ‘The
remplaçant?’

I suppose, because I heard a footstep in the hall – Gaston’s, perhaps, it did not matter whose – caution seized me, and the conventional being who gives orders, takes them, makes arrangements and plans, spoke into the mouthpiece for me.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m here.’

‘I’m speaking from Deauville,’ he said. ‘I have your car. I intend driving to St Gilles later in the day. It’s no use arriving before dusk – I might be seen. I suggest we meet at seven.’

The cool assurance, the certainty with which he spoke, believing I would fall in with his plans, made me hate him the more.

‘Where?’ I asked.

There was silence for a moment while he thought. Then, softly, he said, ‘You know the master’s house at the
verrerie?’

I had thought he would suggest the hotel in Le Mans where he had played his first – and only – joke upon me. That would have been neutral ground. To substitute the master’s house constituted a challenge.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I’ll leave the car on a side-track in the woods,’ he said, ‘and come across the orchard. Wait for me inside the house and let me in. I’ll be with you there as soon after seven as I can.’

He did not say good-bye. The telephone clicked as he hung up, and that was all. I turned from the lobby and went into the hall. Gaston and Germaine were passing in and out of the kitchen quarters to the dining-room with trays for lunch. Outside on the driveway I could hear a car, the Citroën. It would be Blanche and Paul returning from the foundry. Soon we should all assemble and eat together.

Although the emotion that filled me now was violent, overwhelming, yet at the same time I felt deliberate and calm. I was the possessor now, he the intruder. The château was my château, the people were my people, the family who in a few minutes would sit with me round the table were my family, my flesh and blood; they belonged to me and I to them. He could not return and make them his again.

I went into the salon, and the comtesse was still sitting there, surveying the room, the furniture of which had been altered yet again. Julie had gone, bearing the damask cloth with her. The comtesse was alone.

‘Who was that on the telephone?’ she asked.

‘No one of any importance,’ I replied. ‘Someone who had seen the morning newspaper.’

‘In the old days,’ she said, ‘no one would have telephoned at such a time. It shows want of tact. The courteous thing would be a letter of condolence, and flowers for me. However, good manners are a thing of the past.’

I went over to her and took her hand. ‘I want to know how you feel,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t ask you just now, in front of Julie.’

She looked up at me and smiled. ‘We had a vigil, didn’t we?’ she said. ‘You slept in your chair. As for me, I never closed my eyes. If you think this business is going to be easy, you’re mistaken.’

‘I never said it would be easy,’ I answered. ‘It’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.’

‘I have to deny myself peace and pleasant dreams for your sake,’ she said. ‘That’s what it amounts to, doesn’t it? Just because
you want me about the place. How do I know you won’t change your mind again and banish me upstairs?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No … no …’

My sudden violence amused her. She reached up and patted my cheek. ‘You’re spoilt,’ she said, ‘that’s your trouble. Julie and I agreed upon it this morning. We all of us martyr ourselves because of you. If I become ill, which I very probably shall do, it will be your fault.’ She paused, and then looking about her with satisfaction, said, ‘You know, I was agreeably impressed by Françoise in the chapel. She had breeding, for the first time. I shall be proud for everyone to come and pay their respects to her tomorrow. It’s a great solace not to be ashamed of one’s daughter-in-law when she is dead.’

Gaston came into the salon and announced lunch, in his new hushed voice suited to mourning, and as we went out into the hall she said, ‘It will make all the difference when the salon is filled with flowers. Lilies above all, no matter what they cost. After all, Françoise will be paying. We owe it all to her.’

The others were already in the dining-room, and glancing at Paul and Blanche I saw they had the faces of conspirators – not furtive or withdrawn, but in the childish sense, sharing a secret that had turned out well for both. When Blanche, saying grace as she always did, looked at me afterwards, not smiling but somehow confident, assured, I knew that something at least had been achieved that morning, if not an end to silence at least a purge to pain.

As the mother took her seat opposite me I said, ‘Now you are back again, where you belong, I intend making other changes too. I’ve already discussed them with Blanche and Paul and Renée. Paul isn’t going to direct the
verrerie
any more. He’s going to travel, taking Renée with him.’

My statement left her unmoved. Forking a piece of kidney from her plate to the terriers who crouched on either side of her, she said, ‘An excellent idea. They ought to have gone before. Unfortunately, none of us could afford it. Who will take his
place? Not Jacques, surely? He hasn’t the authority.’

‘Blanche,’ I replied. ‘She knows more about the
verrerie
than any of us. In future she will live at the master’s house.’

Even this failed to excite her. I don’t know what I had expected. Abuse of Blanche perhaps, mockery, certainly a torrent of words. Instead she said almost placidly, ‘I always said Blanche had a head for business. I don’t know where she gets it from – certainly not from me. Nor was your father brilliant. He looked upon the
verrerie
as a family tradition, not as a commercial proposition. But Blanche …’ she raised her head and glanced across the table at her daughter, ‘she’ll have the tourists here in no time at all. A shop inside the gates, selling replicas of the château and the church, ice-creams from Julie at the lodge. It would have happened long ago, only that the war intervened.’

She went on eating. Paul, throwing a look at me, said quickly, ‘You don’t disapprove, then? Either of this plan or the other?’

‘Disapprove?’ she echoed. ‘Why should I disapprove? Both suggestions suit me well. What in the world would Blanche do with herself should I decide to come downstairs every day?’ She crumbled a piece of bread. ‘Or Renée either, for that matter.’ She glanced at her daughter-in-law. ‘It’s only when women have nothing to do that they get into mischief. They turn religious or take lovers.’

So there was to be no argument. The child was right. Everyone had what they wanted. Relief showed itself on all their faces, and sitting there, watching them, I suddenly had a picture of what would be. Paul and Renée setting forth with luggage heaped at the back of the new car which I would buy for them, arriving in Paris feeling provincial and a little strange, but the feeling wearing off because of freedom; while Blanche, down in the master’s house, sorting the furniture, turning over the books, coming perhaps upon a forgotten drawing or design, would find another freedom, escape from bitterness.

As I saw these things I was aware of Marie-Noel watching me from across the table. ‘Well?’ I said. ‘What now?’

‘Just this,’ she said, ‘You’ve made plans for everyone but yourself. What are you going to do when everybody’s gone?’

Her question caught attention from the rest. They all looked at me, curious. Even Blanche, raising her head for one brief moment, stared, then dropped her eyes.

‘I shall stay here,’ I said, ‘at the château, at St Gilles. I’ve no intention of going away. I shall stay here always.’

As I spoke I knew what I was going to do. I had remembered the service revolver in the drawer of the library desk. On Saturday I had burnt my hand to spare myself humiliation and discovery because I could not use a gun. Today was different. There would be no observers. The greatest fool on earth could hardly miss at point-blank range. I should have no remorse and no regret. He would receive the welcome he deserved. Even the rendezvous he had chosen, the master’s house, was added justice. The only thing I minded was burning my car. Not that it seemed mine any longer, since he had taken it. It belonged to a past I had forgotten anyway. The project, born in an instant, took shape, becoming clear. I too would walk to the master’s house through the woods, and crossing the orchard at the back, climb through the window as I had done twice before. There would be no witnesses to this encounter. I stared in front of me, seeing nothing but the dark forest trees and the wet earth, and then, glancing up, I saw that they were still looking at me, puzzled, oddly strained. My last remark had sounded perhaps too vehement, too tense, and Marie-Noel, the only one without embarrassment exclaimed, ‘When there’s a sudden silence, and nobody speaks, it means there’s an angel in the room, so Germaine told me. I’m not altogether sure. It could be a demon.’

Gaston came with vegetables. The moment passed. Everyone began to talk at once, except myself. The mother, holding me with her eyes, framed with her lips the question, ‘What’s the matter?’ I shook my head, gesturing, ‘Nothing.’ I could see him climbing into the car at Deauville, driving off, confident, careless, assured of the little world that waited for him, the world
which had become suddenly easier, his problems solved, the fortune he had always wanted now within his grasp; and I wondered whether it was his intention to dismiss me with a handshake and a smile, and then resume the life it had amused him to throw away. If so, his scheme would come to nothing. I was the substance now and he the shadow. The shadow was not wanted and could die.

After lunch my opportunity came. Blanche and the child went upstairs for lessons. The mother called the others to see the rearrangement of the salon. I went to the library, crossed over to the desk and pulled open the drawer. I saw the butt of the revolver beside the photograph album. I took it out and opened it, and it was loaded. I wondered why he kept it there, for what emergency, what strange purpose. Now it would be used against him. He had kept it loaded through the years for this. I slipped the revolver into my coat pocket, went upstairs to the dressing-room and put it away in the drawer beside the boxes containing the morphine and the syringe.

When I came downstairs I realized I had been only just in time. They were moving into the library. The salon was now a place apart, waiting for tomorrow’s ritual. Paul sat down at the desk, Renée at the table, and both of them began addressing envelopes. The mother, settling herself in a chair where she could watch them, put out her hand to me.

‘You’re restless,’ she said. ‘What’s on your mind?’

As I looked at her I reminded myself that it was not her son I was going to kill but someone apart, without emotions, without heart, who had no feeling for her or anyone else. She recognized me as her son. In future I should do everything for her that he had failed to do.

‘I want to bury the past,’ I said. ‘That’s the only thing on my mind.’

‘You’ve been doing your best to resurrect it,’ she answered, ‘with your plan for Blanche.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s what you don’t understand.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Just as you like,’ she said. ‘I ask for nothing better, if it works. The whole thing is a conspiracy, of course, to make life more pleasant for yourself. Come and sit down.’

She gestured to the chair beside her and I sat down, still holding her hand. Presently, I saw she slept. Paul, turning his head, said quietly, ‘She’s doing much too much. Charlotte said so just now. She’ll suffer for it later. You ought to stop her.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s better this way.’

Renée glanced at me from the table. ‘She ought to be resting upstairs,’ she said, ‘as she always does. Paul is perfectly right. She’ll have a complete breakdown after the funeral.’

‘That’s my risk,’ I said, ‘and my responsibility.’

The long afternoon wore on. There was no sound but the scratching of the pens. I looked at the mother’s face, asleep, and knew suddenly I must go before she woke, before the child came downstairs. Paul had his back to me, and Renée also. They must none of them know where I was going. Some impulse, like touching wood to ward off danger, made me kiss the mother’s hand. Then I rose and went out of the room. No one looked up or called me back.

I fetched the revolver from the dressing-room and went out of the front door on to the terrace and round the side of the château to the garden door. As I stood a moment under my first hiding-place, the cedar-tree, I saw César come out of his kennel. He lifted his head, sniffing the air, and looked towards me. He saw me, but he did not bark. Neither did he wag his tail. He accepted me as belonging to St Gilles, but I was not yet his master. That would be one of my tasks. I went through to the park, under the chestnuts, and so out of the domain. Never had the forest seemed more beautiful or more benign, the hot sun gilding the falling leaves.

When I came to the field bordering the foundry grounds I lay down and waited. It was no use entering the master’s house until Jacques had gone and the men had stopped work for the
day. I remembered I had seen cans of petrol standing in the shed where they kept the lorry. Petrol was necessary for my purpose. Lying there in the woods I could see the wisp of smoke coming from the foundry chimney, and I began to get impatient, restless. I wanted the men to go.