Miramont's Ghost (8 page)

CHAPTER TEN

J
ulien lay stretched out on a chaise on the terrace. The August sun was warm, even at ten in the morning, but given his emaciated, weak condition, it wasn’t quite warm enough. He had a blanket over his legs, and still he had moments when he shivered uncontrollably. Not much different from Grand-père, Julien thought sadly. The old man was sitting in a chair nearby, wearing a sweater, despite the heat. He dozed, and his head was tipped forward, toward one shoulder. In the years that Julien had been abroad, the comte had aged considerably. Julien caught a glimpse of the comte’s very slender wrist, poking out from the sleeve of his sweater, and shifted his gaze to his own bony knees, holding the blanket up like a tent. The two men looked like skeletons. It reminded Julien of the Dia de los Muertos, and the Mexican love of portraying skeletons in all types of clothing and scenery.

Grand-père’s aging wasn’t the only change since the last time Julien had been home to France. Genevieve had never truly seemed like “Aunt Genevieve” to Julien—they were much too close in age for that. There were, after all, thirteen full years between his mother and her younger sister, making Genevieve closer to Julien’s contemporary than she had ever been with Marie. They’d never related like contemporaries, though. Julien could well remember coming back to the Château de Challembelles to live at age thirteen, just after the death of his father. Genevieve was nineteen at the time, and quite beautiful. He’d been stunned by her beauty, still an awkward and slender preadolescent himself. He had been more than usually shy in her presence. But it hadn’t taken him long to see that she was mostly illusion and very little substance. Genevieve’s preoccupation with appearance and beauty was just one of the reasons that Julien, as he grew older, found himself increasingly annoyed with females. Julien’s father had been bright and funny and always curious about the cultures that he lived in and the people that he worked with in their diplomatic travels. He loved art and music and food and language, interests that Julien shared.

When all of that was ripped away by his father’s sudden death, and he and his mother had returned to her childhood home to live, Julien had become bored very quickly with the narrow-mindedness of the village of Beaulieu and its inhabitants. Genevieve, more concerned with the cut of her latest gown or the way her earrings caught the light, lost all her charms in just a short time, to his way of thinking.

Now, over ten years later, she seemed to be a faded rose, past her prime though still relatively young. At nineteen, she had been stunning, and her confidence in her beauty had only added to the allure. All trace of that confidence had fled. Her failure to recapture the attentions of her husband only added to the dullness in her eyes and skin, the tentativeness of her smile. She was weak and passive and it annoyed him.

Julien sighed and glanced toward his mother. Marie was walking the grounds with the gardener, no doubt pointing out all the mistakes he’d made since the last time she was home. The man nodded and kept his head down as they ambled through the rose beds. Julien looked away.

Where Genevieve was weak and passive, Marie was exactly the opposite. She had been orchestrating his own life for as long as he could remember. When he was a child, all she had to do was set her lips and shoot him one of her piercing glares, and he would freeze on the spot. He had escaped her clutches, briefly, when he first went to the New World, but by the time he was offered his own parish, just two years into his new life, she had made herself indispensable once again.

Julien felt a momentary twinge of guilt. She had saved his life a few weeks ago. He did not want to seem ungrateful. If she had not acted so quickly, he wouldn’t be here now. But there were times when he deeply resented her control, times when he would give almost anything to escape from her prim mouth and perpetual correctness. Since their return to France, for instance, she had rarely left him in peace for longer than an hour or two, and then only when he was sleeping. Just this morning, when he had insisted on sitting outside for a while, she was adamant that he take an extra blanket and limit his exposure to the elements—correctly, as it turned out. He was suffering from occasional shivers, and was already beginning to feel tired. But he wasn’t going to let her know that she was right. Julien intended to stay out here in the sun, feigning energy that he did not feel, rather than admit she was right, and be forced back indoors.

Grand-père shook himself awake, and squeezed Julien’s shoulder as he rose and headed back inside. Julien spotted Adrienne and her governess coming across the grass from the meadow. Lucie carried a large bag containing their paints and easels, and Adrienne carried her painting in front of her, occasionally glancing at it as she skipped along the stone path. She stopped skipping, lowered her painting, and stared at Julien as she walked more sedately toward the terrace.

“Good morning, Adrienne.” Julien smiled. “Have you been painting?”

She nodded, and glanced toward Marie, still walking with the gardener.

“Might I see it?”

Adrienne smiled slightly and rushed up to stand next to Julien’s side. The painting was a small one, about eight inches square, and showed a view of the meadow and the vineyards beyond. Julien had often looked out at this same view in the years he spent at the château as a teenager.

“I wanted to paint Phillipe, working in the vineyard,” Adrienne explained, pointing to a spot where the paint had been scraped. “But I have trouble with figures.”

“Perhaps. But you do quite a nice job with scenery, Adrienne. How old are you?”

“Six and a half. Lucie is a good teacher. You should see her paintings. She can do figures. She can paint almost anything and it looks right.” Lucie had joined them on the terrace, and stood a few feet away, waiting for Adrienne to finish her conversation.

Julien looked up at the governess, and let his eyes roam the length of her body.
Yes,
he thought
, she does figures quite nicely
. He pulled his eyes away and looked back at his young cousin.

“You like painting, then?” Julien continued.

Adrienne nodded. “And reading. And playing the pianoforte. And I’m learning a little Italian, too.”

Julien’s eyebrows went up. “How fortunate you are, to have a good teacher, and such broad interests.”

Adrienne smiled.

Julien started to cough, and he turned away from her slightly. He covered his mouth; his legs jerked with the effort. Sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip.

Marie rushed up and moved between Julien and the girl. “Adrienne, off with you. Can’t you see he’s too ill for your foolishness?” Marie scowled.

“But . . .” Adrienne stood staring. “But I want to hear about trains. And Indians. And ships on the ocean.”

Marie knelt beside Julien, and offered a glass of water. She turned to Adrienne again. “Can’t you see how sick he is? Leave us. Now.”

Adrienne moved slowly in Lucie’s direction, her painting now forgotten and hanging at her side. She stopped and glanced back at this man she barely knew.

Julien was exhausted from his coughing fit, but he could see that the girl wanted to talk to him. He turned his head toward Adrienne and gave her a weak smile.

Adrienne stared at Marie’s back, hunched as she knelt over her son. Quickly, before anyone could catch her at it, she stuck out her tongue. Then she turned and fled into the house. Julien was the only one to see.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
current of tension ran through the estate, and it wasn’t just the normal tension of Marie and her demands. This was subtle, more pervasive; it affected every moment of every day, for everyone who lived and worked at the château, regardless of where Marie might be or what she might be doing. This apprehension was all centered on the little girl and her visions.

The servants knew, and it had been whispered about endlessly, that Adrienne had predicted, almost a year ago, that someone would try to hurt Julien at his new church assignment. They knew what she had blurted out at church, even before the family was aware that Julien and Marie were back from America. They had all heard the story that Marie had told—the story about the secret mission for the French government that had taken Julien to South America. No one was quite sure what to believe.

While talk about the grandmother had lain dormant for many years, the rumors had begun to circulate once again, brought to the light of day by the girl’s behavior. Everyone kept an eye on the little girl, watching her for any sign that she might say something about one of them. Everyone in that household had secrets, the normal secrets of humankind, but still, there were love affairs and shameful behaviors that none of the servants wanted to be made public. They had all begun to send sideways glances at the girl every time they passed her or were in the same room with her.

Not everyone resonated with this new vibration. Julien could think of nothing but his own health, the way his stomach revolted at almost anything he put in it, of his thin limbs and weak-kneed attempts at walking, of the unending necessity for rest. Getting better took every ounce of energy he possessed. Genevieve was lost in her own thoughts, and with the profound hope that the new baby she was carrying would finally give Pierre a son. Only on rare occasions did she give any thought to what might be wrong with her oldest daughter. It did not trouble her enough to take her away from her other concerns for longer than a few moments, at best. Not knowing what to do, not knowing what it was she was dealing with, she had a tendency to shove it aside, to ignore the tiny sparks of foreboding that would occasionally creep up her arms. It was easier to pretend that nothing was amiss, to smooth down the hairs that were standing on end, and pick up the latest fashion magazine from Paris, and dream of the day when her figure would be restored once again.

The comte knew, the way a former officer in the army would know, that people were talking. He knew he needed to do something to protect Adrienne from the deleterious effects her stories could produce. But like Genevieve, he shoved the idea aside, unable to summon the energy. He was tired, tired in a way that he had never been, and family and servants often found him asleep in a chair. He kept his eye on the girl, he kept his eye on Marie, but he did not deal with the situation the way he might once have done.

Most of the burden fell on Lucie. She was young, much too young to be put in this position, but she was the only one who had the quick-witted intelligence, the depth of curiosity, and the overarching concern for Adrienne, which kept her abreast of everything. She made it her business to keep a close eye on everyone in the château. She watched over Adrienne like a mother hen, and she also kept a sharp eye out for any predators. She watched Marie through lowered lashes. She listened to the conversations of the other servants whenever she had the opportunity. She was sure of only two things: the servants, and by extension the village of Beaulieu, were talking, and she was convinced, the more she watched Marie, that the woman had something she was trying to hide.

Adrienne had nothing new to offer in the circumstances. Lucie had pressed her, privately, to see if the girl had any idea who might have poisoned Julien, to see if there were any further visions to explain what had really happened to him. But Adrienne was not caught up in the intrigue. It was just a curious story she had seen, a little like one of her fairy tale books, and she was able to put the whole thing aside just as easily as she did Cinderella.

Lucie had begun keeping a journal. She waited until Adrienne was asleep, waited until all sounds in the household had ceased, and then she crept from her own bed, in the room adjoining Adrienne’s, and sat at a desk in her nightgown and woolen shawl, scribbling away by candlelight. She kept the journal in her suitcase in her wardrobe, a suitcase her father had given her years ago, the only item she possessed that had a lock and key. She wrote down every vision that Adrienne had shared with her. She wrote down Marie’s reactions. She wrote about her own fears, the suspicions that continued to feed on the stares and silences and whispers of those around her. The more she wrote, the more she observed, the more certain she became: someone in this household had something to hide. Sometimes she would lie awake, mulling over the day’s events, telling herself to just let it go. But she could not. The compulsion to record what was happening would not let her sleep. She had to get up, had to scratch it all out on paper. Only then, after she had locked it away, and blown out her candle, could she return to bed and find slumber. As if, by the act of recording it all, she could somehow find the answers.

One afternoon, she and Adrienne walked out past the lake and up over a hill that looked down on the grounds of the estate. They brought their paints, and set up easels in the grass. The day was a glorious blue, that crystalline blue of September, when the air has just begun to cool down at night. The view before them was splendid: the château in the distance, the lake, the vineyards and farm fields that belonged to the comte, pressed all around by the deep green of the forest.

They sketched and painted, mostly in silence, and Lucie was absorbed in her own composition. She had left the cares and stress of the castle behind, and for the first time in several weeks, she relaxed. It wasn’t until they were beginning to pack up their supplies that she looked at Adrienne’s painting. Her calm evaporated.

Normally, the girl did her best to capture the beauty of the land around her, and she was becoming more and more proficient at following the lines of tree branches and leaves and the roll and sway of the ground in the near distance. This piece was very different and Lucie could not hide her shock at today’s work.

Adrienne had painted the forest, not from the vantage that was before them now, the deep greens and browns and blacks in the distance, fringing the fields. This painting showed the trees and branches and heavy vegetation as if the viewer were in the midst of it, enveloped by the darkness and quiet. Tree branches were drawn like hands, their long fingers reaching out to grab the unwary traveler. The knots in the bark of the trunks stared out like eyes. The effect was startling, and left a dark, ominous taste in Lucie’s mouth.

Lucie glanced at Adrienne, who stood staring into the forest in the distance. “This is very interesting, Adrienne,” she murmured. “Quite different from the other things I’ve seen you paint.”

Adrienne turned to Lucie, and there was something in her eyes, some mix of apprehension and knowledge, that Lucie had not witnessed in any of the girl’s other visions. “They’re watching me, Lucie.”

Lucie felt the hair on her arms go up. “Who is watching you?”

Adrienne met the eyes of her governess, but she looked as if she was lost in another place entirely. “Everyone. Marie. The servants. The people in the village. I can feel their eyes on me when we go to church. I can feel their eyes in the castle, every time I go into a room. I can feel them right now, staring at me. Watching me.”

Lucie glanced around uncomfortably. She could not see a soul, and they were a good mile away from the trees in that forest. The château was almost as far. The only movement in the pastoral scene was the trace of the breeze, bending the grasses, fluttering the leaves of the birch they’d been sitting beneath.

Lucie swallowed her own apprehension. “Your painting looks a little like the forest where Snow White lived. Perhaps there are some friendly dwarfs beyond these trees?” She pointed at the trees in Adrienne’s painting.

Adrienne shrugged. She looked at her own painting. “It feels more like the wicked stepmother. Or a witch, like the one in ‘Hänsel and Gretel.’ ”

Lucie exhaled slowly, forcing her fears down and her heart to slow. She reached for Adrienne’s painting, and wrapped it in a cloth, putting it into the satchel along with the rest of the supplies. “There’s no such thing as witches, Adrienne. They are only part of fairy stories. They’re not real.” She reached over and ran her hand down Adrienne’s small back.

Adrienne looked at her, her blue eyes large and serious. “My grandmother was real.”

A hush descended. All movement stopped; every leaf and blade of grass completely still, as arrested by Adrienne’s words as Lucie was. “But your grandmother was not a witch.”

Adrienne got very quiet. Her eyes moved to the château, the village of Beaulieu barely visible beyond it in the distance. “Some people say she was.”

“Which people say that?”

“Madame LaMott. Her cousin. The housekeeper that takes care of Père Henri. A lot of people.”

Lucie knelt down on the grass in front of the little girl. She put her hands on Adrienne’s shoulders and turned her so that she faced Lucie directly. “Adrienne, your grandmother was not a witch. I don’t care what anyone says. That is just people talking. Sometimes, when people are jealous of someone, or envious of what they have, they say mean things. Do you understand? You cannot listen to what people say.” Even as the words left her mouth, Lucie thought of just how often lately she had been doing just that—listening for every veiled comment or conversation, searching for the knowledge that she lacked. She knew nothing about this grandmother, nothing other than the fact that she had died when Genevieve was born.

Adrienne stared at Lucie, but she said nothing. She shifted her gaze back to the village in the distance, to the steeple of the church rising into the clear blue sky. “I heard other things, too,” Adrienne whispered. “At church a few days ago.”

Lucie’s breath caught.

“Remember when I ran into the churchyard? To get a flower for my mother?”

Lucie nodded. She always hated it when Adrienne took off like that, even though she was within sight. She remembered watching Adrienne as she looked through the mums, planted beneath a hedge of elderberry bushes.

“There were some girls behind the bushes. Noemie and Claire and someone I don’t know. They were talking about my grandmother.” Adrienne shuddered. “And then”—she paused, trying to get the words to come out—“Claire said I was just like her. She said I was . . . touched.” Adrienne demonstrated by putting an index finger to her temple. “What does that mean? Touched?”

Lucie exhaled, wishing she could get her hands on Claire and those vicious little girls. “It means you are different from her. It means you can do something that she doesn’t understand.” Lucie stopped for a moment. “And Adrienne, those girls are much too young to know anything about your grandmother.”

Adrienne was quiet for a moment. “They said my grandmother was a witch. That she had to be locked up. And that I needed to be locked up, too.” Tears made a soft trail on Adrienne’s cheeks, and Lucie knelt down next to her. “Lucie? I heard them say that Julien was not poisoned in church. That I was wrong. That I made it all up.”

Lucie exhaled. “Adrienne, those girls don’t know anything about what really happened to Julien. You need to forget what you heard—they don’t know what they are talking about.”

Adrienne’s eyes wandered to the château in the distance. When she spoke, her words were low and quiet. “Do you think she will try to hurt me?”

“Who? That little girl? What could she possibly do—” Lucie began.

“Not her,” Adrienne whispered, her eyes still locked on the château, as if she could see into the rooms. “Aunt Marie.”

Lucie stopped breathing. That thought
had
crossed her mind. Her worries about Adrienne were many, but Marie had loomed over them all like a storm at sea. She forced herself to inhale. “Your grand-père would never let that happen,” Lucie said. “And neither would I.”

Adrienne turned and looked up at her governess. Lucie met those blue eyes, and for a moment, she could almost see the future. A thick sense of dread filled Lucie’s bloodstream. She stood and stared into the distance.