Murder at Malenfer Page 4

  Simonne was hungry. She wanted dessert now, but had to wait for Madame to finish.

  Why must we always endure this? It’s like watching a plodding cow!

  Her collar scratched her. She looked from her mother, sitting patiently behind her finished plate, to the servants on guard, to the clock that ticked off the seconds. Simonne sat still and endured.

  Simonne thought of herself as not unkind. She bore the resilience of youth, an energy that could not long be depressed by dreary thoughts of death. She was very aware of her body. She had her own friends and counted her fiancé among them. She had her own thoughts and opinions and dreams, and Michel had scarcely intruded on any of them.

  Simonne liked to read; Michel had not. Simonne liked music; Michel had liked to shoot – his ear was dull to anything other than the sound of a hunting gun. Simonne liked to paint and go for long walks. Michel had complained bitterly about having nothing to do. Dying, Simonne reflected, was the most interesting thing that her uncle had done in years.

  Thoughts of death put Simonne in mind of her own departed father, and as it ever did when this happened, her mood slid into melancholy. She didn’t like to think of him for this reason. He had been conscripted and had gone away to fight when she was thirteen. Four years ago her mother had brought Simonne with her to the Manor, after she’d gotten the telegram – such a long time ago. Her mother had been born and raised at the Manor, so for her it was returning home, but for a young girl, quickly becoming a woman, the house was nothing but a jail: remote, isolated, and no one around to be your friend. She had always heard the voices before, but here they were so clear.

  Simonne scratched at her neck again. The black lace itched something sore. She stared over the vast polished table, down to where her grandmother sat.

  Grand-mère.

  Another night waiting, waiting...

  And for what?

  Ennui could make her bitter.

  “What are you staring at, girl? Sitting there like a stunned duck!” Her grandmother spoke to her sharply, stretching out her words. She would be sixty soon, if it could be believed. How did anyone live so long?

  Ancient wizened creature. Just hurry up and finish!

  “Staring, Grand-mère?”

  Michel was always your little baby, and now your baby is gone.

  Madame had allowed Michel a latitude of behavior she hadn’t tolerated in anyone else. It wasn’t just that he was a boy, although that certainly made a difference, but he had been treated with the sickly fondness of a lonely child. Michel had been her pet and was her last. Madame had doted on him with a mother’s right that Simonne’s own mother never got.

  Michel makes five. You’ve outlived five of your own children. How does that make you feel? There you sit, preaching and controlling, telling others what is right and wrong. You don’t even look at her, do you, your own daughter? Too full of misery for losing your beloved family name, and never enough care for those of us still living. No, keep pretending, keep pretending everything is normal; pretend you’re not detestable to those who have to endure you.

  Madame looked hard at Simonne. Objectionable girl. No, the girl had become a woman. She’s a beauty, though, just like her mother, and like I was back in my day.

  Madame Malenfer had married her Colonel forty years ago. The Malenfers, in 1879, were already the establishment. Her husband had distinguished himself for Napoléon III at the Battle of Sedan, and though the Prussians won the field that day, taking her husband, the Emperor, and 100,000 troops prisoner, that wrong had recently been righted. It gave Madame no little satisfaction, though she thought it a terrible shame her husband had not lived to see it.

  The family was conservative and valued its traditions; it long had sided with the church and good-thinking rural people. The nonsense coming out of Paris these days was a blasphemy to hear. Madame had done her duty – there had been six children from their union. Arthur had been her eldest; she had been scarcely nineteen when she bore him. Only one year older than Simonne is now, Madame found herself reflecting. Arthur, her boy, who had served in the Great War and hadn’t come home again.

  Sophie came one year after Arthur. Was it fair to judge her only daughter by her match to that useless husband? Madame had dwelt more often of late on that very question. It still rankled her. Careless frippery! It annoyed her to even think about it. Sophie was weak! Madame was wont to blame herself for her daughter’s selfish indulgence, and there was not even a male issue as compensation, only Simonne with her dark scowling.

  Madame had lost three children in infancy after that, her pregnancies coming quick in succession. It was a dark time, one on which she didn’t like to dwell, and then… nothing. After a while she had thought herself barren. But twenty-one years after Sophie’s birth, she had found herself once more pregnant. Pregnant at forty-three. Michel had been a gift, a present. Her last son had been a blessing, and now he was taken away.

  To lose five children? She had tried to understand, tried to reason, but there was no political or biological logic. The answer she already knew: The Curse of the Malenfers had taken them all – the Beauvais Witch had spoken truly.

  Your name will be wiped from the earth.

  And so it had come, she had run out of sons, and this table was all of the family. Three generations of women, and all of them in mourning – that was all that was left. She, Madame, was the last to hold the name, and it was her job to care for their safety. The Malenfer line had come to an end; but who, after her, should inherit? Who could take care of the estate? Who amongst them all was worthy? Sophie showed no will for it, and was a widow, after all. Then what about pretty Simonne? Stupid, headstrong girl. Madame looked hard at her granddaughter, who stared back with her glazed, smart eyes. If only she weren’t quite so strange. We could have gotten her a better marriage.

  “I’m just wondering when dessert might be coming, Mémé?”

  Simonne was the only person who called her anything other than Madame, occasionally using the familiar affection, its irony not lost on her either.

  “You keep an appetite like that and you’ll get fat, and then your fiancé won’t take you.”

  Simonne looked furious, which pleased Madame, who went on slowly chewing.

  “You stare like a sphinx, Simonne,” said Madame. The only noise in the room beside her own voice was the clatter of cutlery against the china. Madame smelled rebellion and didn’t like it.

  “Keep your daughter better mannered, Sophie, or we’ll have to raise her dowry.” Madame passed a forkful of boiled white meat past her thinly pressed lips. She ground it like chewing tobacco.

  “Simonne, please don’t stare at Madame that way.” Sophie’s voice was tepid. “It’s rude to stare, you know.”

  Simonne turned her eyes on her mother, who wouldn’t meet them. “I was only wondering, mother, whether we’d have a chance for dessert before bedtime. Grand-mère, like so many of these old people, thinks the world waits for them...”

  “Please, Simonne.” Sophie sounded embarrassed, as if fearful of an argument. But Simonne had no mercy for her mother – a pawn in her grandmother’s games.

  “And perhaps it’s me that will send Robert packing,” she threatened. “Perhaps I’m not so keen on him.”

  “Robert is a charm. You are fortunate to have him.”

  “I dare say he even loves you.” Madame said it as if the commodity were scarce, like sugar. “Are you trying to annoy me, Simonne? I don’t know if we’d find a better match anywhere, even accounting for all of your money.”

  “Is that why you like him, Grand-mère? Because you think that he loves me? You just want me to be happy, no other reason?”

  “Insolent girl. He treats you well enough; think yourself lucky. What more do you expect? He presented himself properly, and we were happy enough for you. His family is common, true enough, but Robert has education with the prospect of an income, and his father has envious connections.

  “Face facts, Simonne. Yo
u are a lonely child, and your mother is a pensioned widow. Both of you are dependent on my good will for all of your allowance.” Simonne did not need to be reminded of that. “The match is suitable. He gains the prestige of our family, for which he clearly hankers, and you get a comfortable future. Yet who would take you even for a dowry if they suspected... instability?”

  Sophie looked away. Simonne’s face darkened.

  “You should try harder to fit in.” Madame pursued her granddaughter mercilessly, the point clearly a sensitive one. “I heard some talk concerning you recently, from just before Michel’s death.” Madame kept a keen eye on her, scanning for reaction. “I heard you stirred up everyone downstairs with nonsense talk again.”

  There was no denial forthcoming.

  Madame clattered her cutlery down onto her half-full plate. “It’s exactly this sort of thing you must stop immediately! Whatever was your meaning? Why must you disturb them?” she asked, exasperated. “This is what I’m talking about. Who would marry a woman like that? Who would want one? Tell me.”

  “I can’t help it if they’re upset, Grand-mère.”

  “Can’t you learn to hold your tongue, girl?”

  “But I saw her, I did.” Simonne was defiant.

  “Sheer nonsense.” But Madame was shaken. She hadn’t expected a confession and didn’t want to hear one. Her object was to quash these differences, not to parade them around the room.

  “I saw her.” Simonne was unrepentant.

  “Saw who, dear?” Her mother tried to help.

  “The lady, the Witch.” Out it came. “You know it’s true, you know it, Grand-mère, and I knew that Michel would die.”

  “Enough, girl!” Madame thundered. “We will not hear such childish talk here. Keep in mind you are a grown woman and one that is soon to be wed. No one likes your infantile games. You had best learn to keep your mouth shut.”

  Cowed by this dressing down, Simonne did not move or reply.

  “Really, Sophie,” Madame turned her ire on her daughter. “What kind of a husband will take something like that?” She jabbed a fork at Simonne. “We’ll be lucky if anyone takes her off us. Anyone at all. Talk to her. I insist. You must talk to her and straighten her out, and the sooner you do it the better.”

  Sophie had covered her mouth with her napkin through the whole exchange. She didn’t answer now.

  Madame kept on: “You are an heiress to the estate, Simonne, or has that fact escaped your notice? It is your duty to ensure this marriage proceeds without any possible trouble. Remember, girl, it is not just your reputation you must think of, but the children you will bear for your husband. They should not have to go through life hiding their mother’s shame. Think of them. Think of them. Think of your family for once in your life, and stop being so utterly selfish.”

  Simonne cracked. “There are no real men left at all!” she burst out. “The beastly war took them all, and those it spared...” She faltered for a second. “Those it spared are broken men and old men and false men… and little else besides. You can’t make me do anything. You can’t.”

  Madame was soft-spoken, her voice as sweet as candied almonds coating bitter arsenic. “Simonne, my dearest. Whatever it is that you’re talking about, please mind your tongue and show some respect, and know that your elders know better. Young Robert is hardly detestable, and I have your best interests at heart. Just try to be a little more normal. That’s all I’m saying. I’m sure you’ll be happy together.”

  “He’ll take me as I am, or maybe I don’t want him.”

  Madame stared, disapproving. “I’m tired enough of your hysterical theatrics, Simonne. Your outbursts and inventions. You’d be far more eligible if you could finish a meal in silence. Could you try doing that for a change?”

  “What is it you think I am? It’s true what I tell you, and you know it.”

  “Simonne!” Madame brought her fist down on the tablecloth, and the plate service jumped an inch. “You are a silly young girl, and you must take good counsel.” The last three words were pronounced distinctly as if read from chiseled stone.

  “What do you know about anything?” Simonne rose up, a head of steam upon her. “You’ve watched over nothing but dead children and decline! What sort of example did you set?”

  “Intolerable girl!” Madame hissed her reprove.

  The fight was affecting Sophie. She clenched her napkin to her mouth, her habitual tick when anxiety took hold. “Please, Simonne,” her mother implored, though neither faction took note.

  “Now don’t get too excited, my dear.” Madame was patronizing again, and seemingly enjoying it. “Fancies such as yours can sometimes seem real when emotions are all in turmoil. You will come to see that we are right, and your imagination will calm down.” With Simonne, Madame was a master of platitudes, and she scattered them now like confetti. Simonne regularly took her meals with a supplement of these conferred wisdoms. Tonight, however, she had no appetite.

  “Always duty. Always responsibility. But really it’s all about you. I mean look at this table... just look at it!” Simonne seethed as she gesticulated down and around the long dining room.

  Her mother and grandmother looked about as bid, the same view that they beheld every evening; twelve could sit without touching elbows, but only three lonely women sat eating. Simonne had made her point, if that was it: The room was hollow and nearly empty.

  “This is your pride? Our great Malenfer family? I don’t see anyone here. Look where your damned duty has got you. You have no right to preach to me.”

  Madame’s hand moved fast. It caught Simonne sharply across the face, turning her cheek and stopping her outburst cold.

  “You will mind your tongue, young lady.”

  A tear collected in the young woman’s eye during the silence that followed. A tear; but only one. Simonne’s head slowly turned and met the cold dark stare of the matriarch.

  “It’s a new world, Grandmother,” Simonne stood up from the table. She marched out of the dining room, leaving her family behind her.

  Madame trembled in fury once she had gone, the door closing behind her granddaughter. “Insolent, selfish girl!” she hissed, to no one in particular. She’ll come around. Madame forced down her temper. She is, after all, blood of mine. She’ll do just what is expected.

  Dessert that night was a pear charlotte. It was a special treat from cook that used half a week of rations. It was Simonne’s favorite, but she went without. Madame ordered that none be saved.

  Simonne was furious at herself, but only for showing a tear. She picked up her heels and ran. Each step lightened the burden of expectation that she’d felt on her back at the table. She moved deftly, soft-slippered feet quietly covering the distance. Through the twisting, turning hall she went, skipping across the balcony steps, wending her way beneath the paintings of glowering dusty ancestors. The portraits, in fading oils, watched their progeny’s flight down the hallway.

  Simonne moved forward with a purpose. The paths down which she fled were as part of her as the veins and arteries that laced a web beneath her own pale skin. Simonne knew she was at the staircase without remembering how she arrived there. Up she spiraled and then crossed the landing past the hollow suits of armor – beaten steel that had fought in wars long before this last one. The armor guarded the last run of steps that led up to the topmost landings; Simonne now took them two at a time to the summit of the Manor. Here she stopped, and only now, for the third floor was her refuge.

  Her breathing as she arrived was loud and hard of pace, but she soon enough recovered. Simonne then stood dead still and quiet as stone as she listened for anyone coming. The sound of the wind was a comfort to her; the storm outside was brewing. She heard the roof creak, refusing to yield, and a clatter from somewhere near. She thought at first that it came from the north hall, down around Madame’s rooms, but the distant bang was only the unrestrained hinge of a swinging shutter. Nobody was following her. She was certain of her escape.

>   Her grandmother was the only living soul who occupied this level. Madame’s residency was a good thing, a ward against intrusion. If you managed to avoid her you had the floor to yourself, for no one else came up here unless summoned by the bell. The servants skirted it from habit. As a rule they preferred to roam as close to the ground floor as possible. Simonne knew well that the staff drew straws to tend the third floor call.

  With her breath back and no hint of pursuit, Simonne collected herself to move forward. She reached over to a short table and fetched the stump of a candle. There was always one here to be had in a box she kept for this purpose. She lit it from a half-torn book of matches. Holding them high, the candle and matchbook both, she turned southward into the dark hallway. In this wing of the house, going away from Madame’s bedchamber, there was no lamp to light the darkness. She passed the head of a glass-eyed stag whose rack butted into the shadows. She continued on towards the noisy shutter that grew louder with the wind’s howl. She wound her way with a confident step through the twisting and staggered passage, back towards the end of the house where the last of the rooms were found. Back to the hall at the end of which the attic stairs came down.

  Beyond the walls, the wind bit hard and made the eaves sing shrilly, while the rains tapped their persistent appeal on the glass outside each window. Little stairs stumbled in ones and twos before rising again in gaggles; the hallway fingered a torturous path around the stone bones of the manor.

  Simonne knew the route well and could have walked it blindfold. Her feet skipped as she ribboned along until she stood at the last door. A closed door. The old nursery door. It was flaked in a paint of cracked indigo hue that wrinkled under the candlelight.

  She heard the voices more clearly now, little whispers almost distinguishable. They were growing excited because they’d heard her approach, because they knew that she drew near. And this was why Simonne had come, for it was company she wanted.

  She put a pale hand on the brass doorknob, polished bright from wear. She blew once, hard, to extinguish her light, for none of them liked the candle, and with the acrid smell of a smoking wick the last dim light was swallowed.