CHAPTER TWELVE
Unaccounted
Incidents
Madame Ferland had already orchestrated the seating in the barouche when Boniface and Madeleine made entry onto the courtyard to announce their intentions. She first, in a dazzling pink delight with a crisp bright bow, and he following in her husband's white. Ambrose rose and the carriage rocked. He was only slightly unsettled so when he offered his hand to Madame de Grenville while she strode the folding step, it was an appreciated but unconvincing gesture. Jacqueline fairly scowled while she issued new orders for the distribution of her troops. The family would fill one bench and face now away from Samuel and Adele, who was on the driver's box with her uncle. The unfortunate Ambrose was thrice redirected from center to side and back again, as Madame Ferland adapted to the position that M. Roy finally occupied. Finally, he settled in between skirts of mousseline de laine with his dark clothed arms crossed atop his long grey beard.
The morning sky, as they made way, was brilliant blue but painted thick-gouached grey by tall clouds that stretched across the celestial sphere. Only Boniface assayed attempts at cheer and as he had at breakfast, persisted gamely despite the overcast moods of all the others. Jacqueline's demeanour darkened further with each of Boniface's jests and Ambrose, often difficult to dour, suspected the worst from this jackanape. His pleasure was insolence, Ambrose was sure.
Even Ghislaine, so often relied upon to bring brightness to the company, was fretting and distracted, making certain to concentrate her frown upon the by-rolling landscape or floating clouds. She should look anywhere but at Boniface or Madeleine and was glad for her outside seat. When just past the Arnot forest, Ghislaine saw one twisted pine alone amid the meadow as though cast out by its brothers, she breathed its name and it was Charles Montaigne.
Meanwhile Madeleine gave good account of herself in moderating the play of Boniface. His expansive eruditions, she would deflate with cold summations. Each attempt at wordplay was countered by precise definitions. Nothing discourages wit as much as explanations. Yet, Madame de Grenville would smile for M. Roy from time to time, and too for the family seated before her. Still the hostess, Madeleine sought for means to balance the outing and bring each of the Ferland family into conversation.
"It would not surprise me, Madame Ferland, to hear today a sermon that is entirely aimed toward my husband. It would be just like him to have the fortune to be absent on the one week when the Father seeks to scold him." Boniface, beside her, squirmed. This was such an opening for any manner of remark to be made at Roland's expense but first he was obliged to wait until Jacqueline gave her answer.
And Jacqueline paused for a moment before taking her turn. Perhaps she was noticing the tether on Boniface when she replied, "All sermons are good for all men to hear. We each have our vices that need noting, but also, whenever warnings are given from the pulpit, even if I do not see myself in the parables, I am reminded of the struggles with sins that others must daily endure."
Boniface barely wrinkled his nose, yet it was noted. Ambrose, pressed between his women, said, "It is a pleasure to have you with us today, Boniface. Have you been converted?"
Now here was an opportunity. "No," proclaimed Boniface and then feigned to clutch the edge of the carriage for fear of falling out. "And I pray that this ride does not go to Damascus." Not Ambrose nor even Madeleine laughed. Jacqueline glowered and Ghislaine looked even more away.
Madeleine agreed with Ambrose. "I cannot guess why M. Roy is accompanying us, finally, but am glad that he is, for his sake. When did you last attend mass, Monsieur?"
The blond man shrugged, opting for silence, but Ambrose picked up the beat and said, "Some months before University, I would imagine. That is when the hearts of young men turn to making small revolutions."
Madame Ferland interjected, "Small? To turn one's back to Our Lord is no small revolution."
Ambrose put his hands to prayer, and said, "Grand gestures for intimate uprisings, My Love. You are correct. It is no casual undertaking. I am certain that Monsieur Roy gave it all due meditation, just as I am certain that he will one day see his error."
"It is a logical argument then?" asked Boniface, seeking to stir the pot. Madeleine was quick to douse those flames.
"It is entirely too splendid a day to play at philosophy, or even theology, gentlemen. Let us wait and hear the sermons and psalms when there is a roof over our heads and the majestic sky is but a memory." She leaned back in her seat and spread her arms wide to demonstrate the flavour of the air. The visage of Ghislaine, as she watched the passage of the plains, shifted from melancholy to a wistful gaze.
The party disembarked in the village and on the granite steps of the aged church, Boniface was introduced to Father Briesson. The painter was as polite and reverential as an altar boy, and performed admirably in the role of escort to a married lady into mass. Heed was paid to the rituals and his genuflections appeared earnest. So gallant was Boniface that Ambrose was forgetting to suspect him of outrages and thought nothing of the pair seated together in the pews as though they were a wedded couple. Adele and Samuel took places near the back, sitting among their family. The light in the vaulted nave was poor; little sun filtered over the edges of the boarded windows. Before the war, Madeleine explained for Boniface, there had been characterful stained glass in each arched frame.
Throughout the service, Boniface would find opportunities to rest his fingers upon the gloved hand of Madeleine. She did not pull away nor did she ever reciprocate these covert advances. Instead, it was her gaze that Madame de Grenville laid gently upon Boniface again and again while the mass dragged on. When the young man knelt to pray, Madeleine listened for his under breath words. When he sang, she watched the manner that his feminine fingers held the weathered blue hymn book. When Father Briesson read from Matthew, Madeleine delighted to see Boniface smile. He found some joy in the gospel, it would seem. It might have been the language or it might have been the story. He told the tale of the murder of The Baptist.
Which when Jesus had heard, he retired from thence by boat, into a desert place apart, and the multitudes having heard of it, followed him on foot out of the cities.
Perhaps it was because Boniface knew that next would come the miracle of loaves and the adventure of the water walking. The best part of that would be when the doubting disciple begins to sink and cries out to be saved. There were storms and peril, after all. The priest did not go that far. He stopped before the miracles and commenced upon his homily.
"We must ask ourselves why King Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist, who proclaimed the coming of Our Lord, but Herod made no move to make Jesus Christ his prisoner. Why, for Herod and Herodias, was John such a threat? What was his crime? When Herod sought to marry his living brother's wife, John the Baptist rightly said that this was wrong. An adulterous king sinned and when a priest possessed sufficient audacity to name this sin, he was hurled into the darkness of a prison pit. When Christ wandered the lands demonstrating his divinity and raising up hosts of followers, Herod saw no threat. He saw no crime.
"John had no power. He was neither prosecutor nor judge. He was but a saintly man. By baptism, St John would cleanse the body of the people so that they could be reborn clean into the world of the living Christ. He could not wash away their sins. Only by confessing and renouncing sins can they be forgiven. St John stood, clean and sinless, beloved of Christ, and declared that Herod and Herodias could join him in that state of bliss, if they but renounced their sin. For this outrage, they slew him.
"It is in the darkest nature of men that they will thus act. Whenever an accusing finger is raised, they will recognize the truth of it, but do everything in their power, everything within their grasp, be it crime or sin or blasphemy, to destroy the accuser. It matters not if this charge is whispered or declared to the world from rooftops. They care not how earnest are the efforts of the accuser to relieve them of their sins, to bring them closer to understanding God's love, to making them better children of God... the sinner will still lash out with hatred and with anger.
"John was slain by sinners who refused to admit to their sins. If I destroy this prophet, I will be without sin. No! The sin remains, is made greater, but all they have done is silence a voice. You cannot silence the voice of God. The Martyrdom of The Baptist did not prevent the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ that the Baptist proclaimed. When you are called to account by your fellow man, will you seek to silence them? Will you hold up a glass for them to judge themselves first, or will you meekly accept the call to acknowledge sin?"
And on and on, Father Briesson droned. Boniface kept himself distracted by studying the nude backs of the necks of young village girls and petting Madeleine's gloved hand. Ghislaine, like her mother, just allowed the homily to wash over her and while the elder would nod at every pronouncement, the younger was allowing her mind to play with ideas of who around her was an accuser and who was a sinner. Was anyone accusing her?
Ambrose was adorned with his most vexed brow. The porous arguments of this poorly educated country preacher were ridiculous - with neither foundation nor validity. Why, wondered Ambrose, does the church put such fools upon pulpits? He also puzzled over what petty squabble with a local merchant had positioned the priest so defensively that he had to perform a tirade in support of accusers.
It was following the sermon, when the faithful were advancing to receive the sacrament, that Boniface felt Madeleine's hand suddenly tense and pull away. She gasped, "My God!" and her grey eyes, first wide, were downcast quick. She fumbled to make her slight veil somehow more functional than the fashionable detail that it was. Boniface looked for the cause of her alarm in the throng of devout villagers. At first he saw only a dark huddled mass until, rising from his blessing, one figure stood out for his finer attire and bloated body. The middle-aged bourgeois gentleman hauled himself to wobbly feet with the aid of a black cane so that Boniface could see the pained expression on the blotched face. His pepper goatee and curled moustache marked him a man of fashion as much as his starched white shirt with golden buttons. At his side, steadying he as best she might, was a pretty young lady with alarming swaths of make-up across her cheeks. He did not see Madeleine, this banker or businessman, but shuffled to his bench behind the painted angel.
Madeleine was slouched, unladylike in her pew when Boniface whispered, "Who is he?"
She shook her head and leaned in to the shoulder of the painter. "No one. Nothing." It was brief, but for an instant she clutched the arm of Boniface before pulling herself away to depend upon her hat and its insufficient veil. Beside Boniface, Madame Ferland raised a dry finger to her lips. She saw the distress of Madame de Grenville and made mental note of the lumbering gentleman that seemed its source. Jacqueline was already composing the entries for her notebook later. Beyond her, Ghislaine and Ambrose did not observe.
Ambrose rose to his feet, and then stood his good daughter and wife. Boniface followed in kind. At first, Madeleine tightened and appeared determined to remain rooted in her pew. Boniface gave the slightest of tugs on her sleeve and the faintest of whispers, "It will be all right." Then, with her chin stuck out and her nostrils flared, Madeleine rose and marched through the crowd, resplendent and bright in her fine pink dress, to take the sacrament of God. Her grey gaze was fixed upon the altar. Boniface stood by her side, acting the guide.
As the small party of Parisians knelt among the devout villagers before the altar, none of them imagined themselves as sinners, undeserving of the blessing of Communion. Only Ghislaine and Ambrose were reflecting at all on their immortal souls. Boniface was mentally active trying to not appear out of the Catholic habit. Even these simple thoughts were distracted by discomfort in his knees, so he commenced to scheme revenge upon the architects of church doctrine and decor. Even as the wafer was placed upon the tongue of Madeleine, she was intent on implications and ramifications of other events. She was conjuring within her mind all the possible catastrophes that might now befall her. Madame Ferland was furiously meditating upon the state of Madame de Grenville's immortal soul. The instant that Father Breisson's hand touched the brow of Jacqueline in blessing, she was transported back to the corporeal and was ashamed.
When, by stately procession, the friends and family returned to their pew, Boniface stared at the stranger of the goatee with such intensity that it pulled the gaze of that man from Madeleine. So cold and disdainful was the frontispiece of the young painter that the other gentleman was obliged to turn away and murmur some hushed whispers to his over-made demoiselle. The fellow fumbled with thick fingers for a dull-golden timepiece while Boniface led his lady once again to her seat. Only now did Madeleine dare to seek for that gentleman with her grey eyes, and when she found his profile, distracted by the girl beside, she looked long enough to see what wear the years had made upon his face. She saw little of what she had once admired, but deeper now were aged creases and more shapeless now were corpulent bulges. The goatee was still well groomed, but more grey than she recalled. The edge of his eyebrow appeared to be plucked! He was fat and ugly and old and he was vain, despite it all. Roland would take delight in knowing this, but he could not be told.
Suddenly his eyes met hers and then he put on that face: the ridiculous one that he thought so adorable and attractive. Madeleine stood to her feet and, clutching handfuls of pink dress, shuffled her way past startled parishioners. Boniface followed but a few yards before he stopped to call back toward Ambrose in a loud whisper, "I'll see her home." He then hurried after Madeleine, out of the small church and on to the square. Back on his bench, Ambrose was prevented from joining in the pursuit by a long, stiff arm of his wife. Ghislaine's slender neck twisted to track the flight.
The village square of whites and browns was empty, but for the shimmering pink figure of the woman alone. Five dark carriages were tethered in a demi-ring before the church where Boniface strode through to behold Madeleine. She kept her back to him and stared past the old brick well to the high sky of pale blue and wild, rolling greys. She did not flinch when his hands took gentle hold of her shoulders, so he could feel the bone and tense muscles beneath her bold silken jacket. He knew precisely where to find the pin, and drew her Sunday hat away. When his cheek fell to rest upon her ear, Madeleine arched back her neck to push brown bound hair upon his blond. "Do not worry," he softly urged, and she would not defy him, if she had the will. He said it before she could, "We won't go back in there. Come, I'll walk you home. Do you have everything?" Madeleine nodded and took her hat back from Boniface, to occupy her restless fingertips. Arm in arm, the couple paraded up the empty street. They remained silent until just past the last nestled house of that village. Even then, he did not ask. Boniface spoke of birds and clouds and how bright the sun was become. In response, Madeleine would nod and concur, and pick at her bright satin bow, and finally insert her own petty thoughts into the dialogue. Neither could maintain it forever.
"In your youth, Boniface, you must have painted bad paintings. You surely did drawings that you are embarrassed by."
"Certainly, and when I was young, I thought them most clever and good."
"Where are they now, those mistakes?"
Boniface took in a deep and luxurious breath as he sought to compose a useful reply and then said, "My mother has one that is particularly terrible. It is a still life of mud." Madeleine laughed. Boniface added as though it were an afterthought, "My father has none of my shames or triumphs. He sold them each for whatever centimes they might fetch."
"But he could not sell the one your mother claimed!" Madeleine took some pride in that demonstration of defiance in her sex.
"My father and mother had no hold over one another. Edouard could never marry Gabriella."
"A tragic tale of love?"
"A seedy story set in a brothel."
"I'm sorry," said Madeleine, reflexively, but he felt her arm tense and start for a half an instant to pull away.
'Hypocrite,' he thought, and was immediately ashamed.
"For my first seven years, I was raised in that convent of sinners, by sisters of dishabille habits. I might have remained there, at least as a child, with my dear mother, but for a scheme of hers. Then, I knew nothing of it. I was only a child, but each year on my conception day, Edouard Roy would receive, by post, a bill for my upkeep. I suppose that as I grew in size the bill did too, and Eduoard's opportunities to pay guilty gratuities correspondingly diminished. Perhaps instead it was the death of his wife, but in time he'd had enough of the situation, be it blackmail or obligation. One thousand Francs changed hands and so did I.
"I did not long weep, for this new home was great in size. Only later did I realize how hollow and empty was the interior and over the years, it became more and more barren as creditors seized what they could. My new father was well past fresh and as I watched him decay and fall to rot each day, you will appreciate that he never spoiled me."
"Did he love you?" asked Madeleine.
"He never knew me, truly. Too, for how much of his love he gave to vices, I should have been glad to escape his notice. I was beaten rarely, for he seldom had the energy. So really, what grounds had I for complaint?"
"If I may say," she said, "you appear to have come out of it all with promise, opportunity, and capability. A great many children born into such a fate would crash upon the rocks of an unjust world. I see your star rising, Boniface. Your father gave you an education?"
Boniface worried over the wording of his reply before answering, "My father never stood between me and an education. There was a library suitable for a young boy, for a time. It was my mother that spent her mornings teaching me to read, and then my father left me alone to do so."
"I think that I like your mother very much, Boniface."
The painter smiled and took in the vista, where tawny fields of barley were caressed by a warm breeze. Already the pair was nearly to the edge of the Arnot forest with its dark viridian coolness beneath a ceiling of lively emerald. The tall and floating clouds, now a purest white, humbled that wide green wood. A ribboned track of dry brown earth wound here to the left, passing by the dense foliage, and then would rise to the distant ridgeline. Kneeling, the gentleman took up a single small daisy from the grass beside the path, and rose turning to adorn Madeleine's tight hair with the summer flower, just above her delicate ear.
"My mother would have loved you, as I do," he said.
The wide grey eyes of Madeleine beheld Boniface and her silken throat quivered against a white coral cameo. When his gentle fingers drew down amid the tiny wild hairs at her temple - when the tips of those digits traced the line of her jaw and to the peak of that pale throat, setting her flesh to tingle, she thirsted to give him an answer.
"No," she squeaked, before she mastered herself to command, "No, my Boniface, you cannot say such things."
Her paramour sought to persist, for the sake of the narrative, and proclaimed that, "Love cannot be silenced!"
"It must. I am a married woman."
"No one can hear us here."
"I can hear it, Boniface. You are speaking to me. Do not say such things to me... please! For the love of God, Boniface, let us not speak of love."
Yet he insisted. "I love you."
Madeleine turned from Boniface and, as she plucked the single white daisy from her hair, took three steps toward home. Turning back to him then she said, "Don't let us quarrel. Not today. Not ever." He put up that smile and came on, offering his arm. She continued as she accepted, saying " I am grateful, my Boniface, for your company today. I don't know what I would have done had you not come out of the church after me. Something foolish, I suspect. I was acting stupid, like a girl in short skirts again. I am ashamed of my behaviour."
"You have nothing to be ashamed for."
She was silent then and both he and she watched her little white boot tips, drily dusted, poke out from under broad pink skirts with each slow step. Then the rattle and jingle of a homeward bound barouche crept in upon their interlude. The pair waited for the carriage to catch up to them. There was no question of continuing their walk and no thought given to hiding themselves in the forest. They stepped to the side of the path and allowed the horses of the barouche to stop in a most ordinary fashion. Boarded and seated, there persisted no discussion of what had happened that morning by any of the group. The small company was reassembled for the return to the villa and would reappear in time for lunch as though there never were an incident.
Before lunch, Adele and Ghislaine hurried to their little bedroom at the end of the hall to change out of their Sunday best dresses. As they crowded against the single bed and jostled democratically for space, Ghislaine initiated the gossip.
"Do you have any idea what so upset Madame de Grenville? She dashed out as though she was terrified."
Adele answered instantly. "I know! Everyone was whispering. Aunt Georgine thinks she is pregnant!"
"Do you think?" Ghislaine worried at a stubborn ivory button for a moment. " I don't think she was ill. I think someone did something, or said something."
"The priest? I wonder if she thought the sermon..."
Ghislaine interrupted her bed mate to say, " There was a man. A man that had not been there before. When Madame dashed away, he also rose."
"Monsieur Boniface?
"No no." Ghislaine waved her hands and so her blouse before continuing, " He was on the other side. A large man in a dark suit. A stranger. He had a goatee."
"Oh yes," exclaimed Adele. "The ugly fat businessman. That was Monsieur Hector from Paris."
Only Ghislaine saw the humour in what Adele had said so only she laughed.
"But he is fat! And he is ugly," the serving girl asserted.
Ghislaine was now stepping out of her skirts, clumsy in the confined space. "Yes. He is fat and he is ugly. Who is he?"
Adele shrugged into her working blouse. "A rich man. A landowner. But he sold most of his land near here. He used to own this place. He sold it to Monsieur de Grenville. It was not expensive, they say. It was something like a wedding present. His brother still has property on the other side of the stream but that Monsieur Hector and his wife do not go to church. They have two sons but they don't go either and both are stupid and rough. Monsieur Hector - Gaston - the fat one that was there today, he has no wife and they say he never will. He does go to church though when he comes to Amance. That is not often. It has been years since he was last here, I think. Now he is old and fat and ugly."
Now the two girls could share the laugh.
"Did you see the whore that he was with?"
In the adjoining room, Montaigne was interrupted from his meditations upon canvas by the prattling wall. Only a few words came through it clearly: those that were loudest and most insulting. He would go to the dining room to seek more complete distractions.
Boniface, alone, set aside the clothing of Roland. He would take up the old ochre apparel for yet another day.
Madeleine put her pink splendour away to the closet and down she lay awhile in her soft dressing gown, upon her husband's bed. Dearly did she wish to just remain there. The world was spinning away and she was losing control. She could not avoid lunch. She had to go in and be the hostess. What a complete fool she had made of herself today. What must everyone think? She must go forth and show that everything was as it ever was. Word would get back to Roland. Who would tell him? It didn't matter. He would know. What could he know? He already knew, didn't he? She should never have made such a scene. She was as bad as her husband was. Worse. Her balled palms were pressed firmly into her eyes but she did not cry. She sighed and lay there, trying to decide.
Only two doors away, Madame Ferland was sitting with her husband, neither intending to make a costume change save that the lady's hat was again boxed up and put away. Ambrose poked his nose through the curtain partition to consider cloud formations while his wife continued her assessment and made notes in her little book.
"Clearly she was once that man's mistress, and clearly she is hiding this from her sphere. It is also certain that she was surprised to see him there. There was no fore-warning in her manner, this morning... but there was something that had M. Roy all eager and excited at breakfast. He was acting quite the fool, wouldn't you say?"
Ambrose did not distract his eye from the tall stratocumulus concentrations to say, "He ever acts the fool, my Love. Do not delve too much into his antics or play. He wants to keep us ever wondering."
"Is he as simple as all that?"
"He is but mad north north-west. When the wind is southerly, he can tell a hawk from a handsaw."
Jacqueline shook her head but she wrote it down anyway. "I don't understand. Why would he do that? What does he hope to gain by playing the fool? I am certain that he always has some scheme. Maybe you cannot understand him so you declare him to be unknowable. If you cared as much about humans as you do nature, maybe you would understand him better."
Abandoning the window-framed sky for the moment, Ambrose looked for his wife, as much to assure her of his attention as to assess her physiognomy. His heavy grey brows pressed themselves into a knot when he saw her there, sitting on the side of the well-made bed, and putting notations into her infernal booklet.
"Do not worry about Monsieur Roy, I will deal further with him and M. Montaigne as they make necessary."
There was no acknowledgement or doubt. She said, "I cannot imagine how Ghislaine is understanding all of this. She must be horrified. These people might be her ruin."
That brow of Ambrose further vexed, so he turned his gaze and thoughts once more to the clouds.
Charles was not imperceptive. He could sense the unspoken tension that chilled every passage in the halls and left the breakfast and lunch conversations unnatural and strained. That Madeleine and Boniface were hardly speaking to one another was surely due to the demands of Ambrose yesterday. The young scoundrel had taken his lesson to heart, it seemed. Maybe there had been another altercation between Ambrose and Boniface at church, thought Charles. The young rogue was no longer playing the husband, however ironically. The cool semblance of the house might be due to the ladies seeing the embarrassment of the younger painter losing a battle with the elder.
After a light supper, the six took themselves out onto the patio, as had become their habit. A light rain had recently passed, so Ambrose and Boniface were wiping dry seats for their women. Ambrose led the conversation this evening, speaking at length, at first, about the homily given that morning by Father Briesson. Boniface, out of his form, remained quiet and allowed Charles and Ghislaine to carry the word burdens. Madeleine too was uncharacteristically mum on the subject of accusations and sin. She would only interject some aside or invitation to a drink when there was any lull in the discourse. On those occasions when Madame Ferland specifically asked for Madame de Grenville's opinion on a point of disagreement, the latter lady would be delightfully evasive with some impromptu display of tired wit. It was after one of these parries that Madame Ferland rose and found some bronchial pretext to retire her family to their appointed place for the remainder of the evening. There was no protest from Ghislaine, nor even a sigh of resignation. As she lingered to bid her bon-nuits, she held the gaze of Madeleine overlong. The diminutive hostess met the challenge and similarly persisted in the pointed appraisal. Both ladies smiled charmingly while no words were spoken. Finally, Ghislaine swirled about and followed both of her parents in and there remained just Boniface, Charles, and Madeleine standing on the porch. The large painter looked at the lesser and the lady and then retook his seat only when he saw that Boniface was doing the same.
The eyes of Montaigne flashed suddenly to scour the grounds. Madeleine's gaze tried to follow his, and then also that of Boniface.
"I heard something out there," said Charles, still watching for the source.
There was a snap and Charles leapt up alert. In the approaching gloom at this end of day, any phantasm or poacher might find some secret place to play and be unseen behind the hedges, garden or skinny olive trees. On the pond, the swans this eve seemed unperturbed.
"I heard it too," claimed Madeleine.
"And I. It could be anything. Calm yourself," said Boniface.
Montaigne answered, "It could be anything. Stay alert."
Boniface grinned sarcastically. "Is it Prussians perhaps?" he asked, but Madeleine reached out a hand to slap his knee.
"I'm sure it’s just some harmless creature. We get deer sometimes in the summer. Be seated, my friend," said Madeleine. Charles remained listening and peering for a half moment until he surrendered to the orders of his commander and folded back into his patio chair.
Just as they had all gotten settled, Boniface’s expression lit up with devilish glee. Without bothering to sober it, he half rose to lean as close as he could to Montaigne. The great man’s brows shot up at this unexpected approach, yet he held his ground so that Boniface could whisper to him, “How is your Leda coming? Will she be very beautiful?” The player then sat back and allowed his smirk to grow.
It took a moment for the question to register, in which Charles looked upon the bemused prettiness of Madeleine. His reply was aloud. “She will be beautiful, yes. She must be. She is Helen’s mother, after all.” Madeleine grinned and solved the riddle but her sense of triumph was short lived for quickly Boniface pressed his mouth toward the lady’s ear and thrust a private question upon her.
“Tell me what you wear when you sleep. Shall I imagine you naked?”
Bravely, she avoided a blush, she thought. Such a question! She might have expected such a whisper from him, but had not. Only briefly did she consider Boniface and then turned her eyes to Charles as she mustered her answer. .
“You will do as you like, Monsieur,” she said for Boniface while she watched the beard of Montaigne furl. She paused and different answers played silent around the tip of her tongue and fine teeth. "But I will not answer secret questions in front of my friends."
Boniface gave lift to his torso once more and made to make another whisper for Montaigne but the other raised up his great paint-stained hand and thrust it toward the face of the pest. “Enough!” He stood. He boomed, “We must retire… apart.” There could be no questioning his authority. Madeleine mollified him and agreed, but more daintily.
They all three stood then, sharing the question, until Madeleine bid the gentlemen a good night. Boniface took notice of the quivering, knotted fists of Montaigne and decided against play. When Madeleine was departed, he stayed a moment longer to make his own exit distinct and did not throw any smirk back over his shoulder. When he was gone, Charles looked down to his hands and opened the rugged palms.
"I must work."
And so each, in their own way, made off to their assigned corners of solitudes. Where the Ferland couple shared a knotty mattress, neither spoke nor moved nor touched their mate tonight.
In the unlight, Ghislaine and Adele awoke to a thrum - a beat - some trill upon the window pane. Side by side and sitting up, the girls both spied a silhouette of long lean light-touch fingers splayed against the glass, drumming out a signal with long hard nails. Adele knew this assembly call and bundled off the mattress into her handed-down red robe. The moonlight gave the half-dressed girl a grey and ghostly glow. As Adele, slipperless, dashed to the door, Ghislaine saw, in that half shadow, a smile of excitement on the servant's face and then she vanished into the blackness of the long hallway on hasty naked feet. When she was gone, Ghislaine scrambled across the squeaking mattress, to lean against the iron rail and stretched her lithe form as far as it could go to nearly press her face on to that lead-glass window and strained to see what mystery was to be revealed. Some male figure, it must be, in black and bulky overcoat, all aswirl as he turned to meet the scarlet and white flowing form of Adele, captured the girl in his arms and drew her with undisguised eagerness toward the great stark and lightless shape that Ghislaine knew was the carriage house.
"Oh!" the maiden gasped. Stretched out, she could not turn aside. She could not turn away, so even when the figures of that midnight liaison were lost in seamless shadows, Ghislaine stared long into the night. When she withdrew and eased back atop the warm and tossed sheets, a tearful and a yearning moan creaked out breathless from exhausted springs.
In the quiet of the night, near to morning, nothing seemed to stir, but in the conservatory Charles Montaigne was pacing furiously. Inspiration had been elusive. He could feel a desire to create surging within his fingertips, on the tip of his tongue, and in the corner of his eye but he could not make. All through the lamp lit night he had alternated between failing and flailing at the canvas and then he would turn away and pace again or throw himself down onto the bed, or the floor, and thrash about desperately. More than haunted, he was possessed by emptiness. Desire screamed within his head but nothing could satisfy it. The need to make had pained him, keeping him awake all through the long, restless night.
Finally, before the cock crowed, he determined himself upon a course of action that might break his fever. There would be food in the kitchen. Without anything more than his nightshirt, he hurled himself out of his room into the hallway and ran square into Boniface.
The young man, like Montaigne, was dressed in little more than a nightshirt, but his was clean and white compared to Charles' stains. It seemed so unfair. The handsome man held a single thin candle flickering between fingertips and it cast him in a soft glow. Behind the decadent and callous painter, the door to the de Grenville bedroom was closed. The door to Ghislaine's room was closed. Such a perfumed musk was on the deviant's face that Montaigne knew that the predator must have come from one of them. Boniface stopped to register Montaigne's expression, saw the vague realization and horror thereon, and delighted in it. He pushed past the big man and strutted on by on bare feet. Montaigne did not see the grin of the young painter, for he could not tear his eyes from the closed doors. Boniface's door was now also closed. All the doors were closed and darkness blinded him.
Steps were taken toward de Grenville's room... Roland's room... Madeleine's room... the room that Boniface might have triumphed in. Montaigne could not commit to it though and he spun around. He stood before the door of Ghislaine's room; fist raised to sound a knell, but did not. It was the servant's room too. He paced toward Boniface's door, but before he got to it he turned away again, spinning in the black. So that is why he had been so agitated all night. Somehow his body had sensed this infamous act. The betrayal must have reached him through the halls and walls.
He ran. Not dressed for the night, Montaigne fled out the back door of the house and left it swinging and banging behind him. He ran, stumbling and clawing at the air, and ran. The world cut into his big bare feet. The cold morning air lashed his nearly naked torso. Tormented, Montaigne hurried on to find himself elsewhere.
Dread of this moment had long plagued him. He knew the possibilities and the potentials. Now though he was certain and with certainty came a horror that would not release him. It bit into his brain with powerful jaws and seized itself there, unrelenting. Montaigne ran for it was all that he could do.
She had fallen from her celestial height, as was now shattered clay, beyond repair. She had failed to be his perfection. It was all he had asked of her. Him! Why him? Such a coarse descent into mortal tragedy.
In the morning, Montaigne did not come to breakfast, and nor did Boniface. Madeleine was there but nearly as severe as Madame Ferland. All the spirits that had been forsaken at yesterday's lunch remained banished. Ambrose sensed the mood shifts and followed after the others, for he watched the look in his wife's eyes when she sensed deceit and shame in the countenance of their daughter. Something had happened and some at the table knew exactly what had transpired. None dared speak of the chill. Indeed, the clatter of utensils on china and the sound of chewed food and breathing was all that anyone heard. Even Madame de Grenville was unable to muster the manners to propel the morning conversations on. She was content to remain in silence with the few others that had met. The company seemed much reduced now with only the Ferland family and Madeleine present.
When Ambrose departed to work, Madame Ferland pulled her daughter aside for some manner of inquiry. Madeleine debated her course but decided that it was Montaigne that first she must encounter. He was not in the conservatory. Curious, Madame de Grenville prowled about the grounds for some time, unable to find either Charles or Boniface in their workshops. Finally Adele discovered Montaigne in his former bedroom, thought long since abandoned. He had slept atop the bedclothes and was in a frightful state. When Madeleine entered the room, she first noticed the raw and bleeding feet of the man, sticking out of the end of the too small bed. Aware of her arrival, he sat up quickly and then winced in pain. He wished her good morning but there was absolutely nothing pleasant about the greeting.
"What has happened?" the woman asked when she had closed the door behind her. The room seemed far too tiny.
"I should ask you."
"Then do," said Madeleine. "I have done nothing."
Montaigne watched his large hands clasp and unclasp from fist to open palm and back again and again. He could not dare to look at the woman.
"Do." she repeated. "Ask me."
He held his hands spread wide and still did not take his focus from the space before him. "You know what you have done."
Madeleine was also then watching the man's dangerous hands. "If you think that I have somehow hurt you, then I demand that you say what I have done."
Now the fists were formed. "You have taken a lover" stated Charles.
"That is no business of yours."
"You do not deny it then."
"I assert," insisted Madeleine, "that it is no business of yours."
Montaigne now turned to look at Madame de Grenville with all the hurt of a wounded child. "Why him?"
She restrained a laugh and kept her visage calm. She challenged him saying, "It would be right if it were you?"
"No. Yes. No. You cannot be taking a lover."
She repeated, "That is no business of yours" and Montaigne turned his back to Madeleine. He was no match for her. She had all the answers and she was right, he knew: he had no business accusing her of anything if his outrage was propelled by envy.
Montaigne's only recourse, he foolishly felt, was to wield truth as his weapon. Still looking only into the furthest corner of the room, he admitted that, "I would not wish you to take me as a lover. I would not wish to see you fall so low."
Madame de Grenville shook her head ruefully. This would take another approach. "Please, Montaigne, do not fault me for being less than what you wish I was. I am but a weak woman. I am flesh and blood. What did you expect me to be?"
He flailed. "I don't know. Perfect. Better."
And then she went on the attack. "Look to yourself. You be perfect. You be better. If I choose to fail, it is no business of yours."
Turning now to look square into the face of Madeleine, Montaigne rose up with some defiance, "Men such as I require women such as you to be better. I need you". His desperate expression was more pitiable as a fierce wince was forced on him by bloody feet pressed against the floor.
She shook her head then and put her back against the door. Crossing her arms she continued on the offensive. "It is not my role..." she began but then faltered. That road led to conflicts that she did not wish to encounter. Down that road was more philosophy than she wished to engage in. No, she must stick to keeping it simple and straightforward.
"I'm sorry if I cannot be what you require. Do not be angry. Pity me."
There was a quiet pause then as each of the two reflected upon their positions. Finally, Montaigne, once more focused upon a corner of the floor, stated that, "I am not angry with you. I am angry with him."
"No!" Her defense was too quick. "Do not be angry at Boniface. The fault is wholly mine. I am weak." Montaigne took confidence in her desperation. He rose from the bed and took on greater height. Any pain was parceled into rage.
"He is a seducer. That cannot be tolerated. If you are weak, someone must protect you. Your husband is away, so I will stand in his stead."
Her arms waved in front of her, trying to brush away this line of discussion. "No. No. It is none of your business. Say nothing."
"What would Monsieur de Grenville think of this?'
"It is not your affair."
"Honour," said Montaigne as though it were a well-played trump.
"Men," resigned Madeleine.
While this battle of wills wasted away their morning, one member of the party kept focused on his art.
The thick waters of the murky pond chilled the wrinkled white calves of Ambrose. Green stains rode a short way up those scrawny limbs but did not yet threaten the rolled trousers. The man moved slowly and sought with each step to first confirm his footing upon the shallow stone bottom while his long pale arms poked out from the likewise gathered sleeves of a fresh pressed shirt. They lent balance to the teetering genius as he encroached further upon the objects of his interest but at the ends of those thin beams, in withered hands, were pad and pencil.
Fearless, the several indolent swans paid no heed to their nearing neighbour, instead swimming in slow procession, progressing without one hint of mechanism. A long white neck wound reaching back behind to nibble at some nuisance itch. A lone black side eye there found the professor and did not blink.
Careful, cautious, Ambrose brought paper and pen together and while there, to his knees in that water brackish, undertook to capture the power of that bold and regal stare. He met the gaze full on and sought to seek past that dark glare, to see the rim of dark line that proved the role of flesh and bone in the muscle forms of this fowl. The landmarks were determined and the proportions, in an instant, guessed. More time would be required. More observation would be needed before his questions could be sated. He noted the contraction points that lent movement to the beak as it gnawed upon its own downy haunch. They were further forward than he’d ever imagined. The jaw (it may be so dissimilar as to warrant a more distinct nomenclature) seemed unrelated to the tendons of that notable neck. After all, the only relationship between masseter and sterno-cleido-mastoid was one dictated by proximity such that specific effects are limited and dictated by the inability to contract both concurrently. This creature of the wild fowl was not so constrained. The lower bill should be able to be firmly closed at fullest flexion. Indeed, thought Ambrose, he would have to take hand to a cadaver sometime soon and see exactly how much concavity could be achieved
Ambrose made a notation, more cryptic than it needed be, that adjudged the neck of this swan to exactly match the length of the body and that similarly the beak seemed to precisely mirror the inverse sweep and measure of the tail plumage. It stood to perfect reason, mused the man to his knees in mire, that the ideal attitude of the elongated throat would be to reflect the radius of the bird’s belly and that further thought set his mind and eye to the possibilities that the water’s reflective surface might allow, indeed demand.
Ambrose, in his whites, bent low among the swans with aged back arched. His neck stretched forward as though it would let him better see beyond the silvered beard.
The lilted greeting of Boniface floated low across the pond and caused not a ripple.
“Good morn’, Monsieur. Your metamorphosis nears completion.”
The elder twisted his neck around to view the intruder to his studies and saw the cub lie languid on the lush lands at the water’s edge. His costume was imperfect, spoiled from the previous night’s indulgences, no doubt, but no trace of rue could ruin his tawny hue. Even his mane, unbound yet ordered, fell with more energy and rhythm than the rivulet that lazily pranced beside him.
Ambrose calculated a smile for the youth. How could he not?
“If I went to Jacqueline, in the night, as a giant white swan, you’d find me, I fear, resting upon your plate set to eat.” He said.
The old man did not straighten his spine but looked back to his birds with pencil at the ready. He could quiet the boy with small talk grown infinitesimal.
Hardly disquieted, Boniface laughed like a songbird.
“Senility has not stolen your wit, yet.”
Then lumbered upon the scene the great Montaigne. He came on down the garden pathway with the gait of a tumbling boulder and there, Sisyphisian, came Madeleine following on behind.
The young lion tensed but Ambrose, safe upon the water, tended to his lore with diligent arrogance.
The giant stopped then, as if for a moment he was plagued by doubt. With furious and vexed brows, he stared at Boniface but suddenly Madeleine's small hand clutched his elbow.
"No!" she whispered angrily. "Do not do this thing! Say nothing."
Montaigne fumed, "This cannot be undone. This cannot…"
But Madeleine insisted and raised the stakes, saying, "If you love me, you will do nothing!"
"Love…"
"If you care about me, if you respect me. Please Charles. If you love me, do nothing."
"But…"
"No. Nothing more. Let this lie. Do not ruin everything.
Boniface made every effort to remain as casual as could be while he watched Montaigne, who towered over Madeleine, become visibly weakened. He could hear none of the obviously agitated conversation between them but he was certain that he knew the topic of their disagreement.
Charles tried, "Come. Let us all talk about this." But Madeleine released him then and turned.
"You are impossible. I thought you so much better. But you are as bad as he is."
And with that Montaigne was speechless. He watched as Madame de Grenville made a show of a slow and regal exit. He had no words. He had no actions. The great hands of the man lay limp at his side, unable to clench and fist.