The Chateau on the Lake (31 page)

‘And then what?’

‘Carriage after carriage rolled up the drive and the gentlemen and ladies came in, all dressed in sparkling diamonds and silk.’ Her narrow face clouds over. ‘Two of the men from the village had called on the master the day before to plead with him to give the children some bread, but he refused. The men were whipped.’

‘What happened then?’ Etienne’s face is dark with anger and I’m filled with shame to be related to Auguste Moreau.

‘That night one of the children died of hunger, his poor little belly all swollen. His father went mad with grief and the rest of the men came here in the middle of the night and battered down the door. The master’s guests had gone by then and they dragged him from his bed and threw him and his mother into the dungeon.’

‘Serves him right!’ I say.

The girl smiles. ‘So now everyone from the village has moved into the château. I have a room to myself with a silken quilt on the bed. Imagine!’

‘Imagine,’ I echo.

In the distance, I hear the sound of voices coming along the passage. I glance fearfully at Etienne.

‘We’d better be going,’ he says.

The girl frowns. ‘What did you say you’re delivering?’

The sounds grow louder.

‘We’ll come back later,’ I say.

We dash out of the door and scurry along the servants’ passage. Etienne grasps my hand and pulls me through a warren of rooms until we can no longer hear the voices.

I lean against a wall to catch my breath while the sound of my heartbeat rings in my ears.

‘No time to stop,’ whispers Etienne, and we are off again, peering into larders, storerooms, dairies and coal stores. At last I find a studded door with a metal grille set into it. When I open it there’s a narrow stone staircase leading down into darkness.

‘This is it,’ says Etienne, a muscle tightening in his jaw. ‘I’ll never forget this place. It gave me nightmares for years when I was a boy.’

‘Then I hope Auguste suffers the same in the future.’ Anger simmers in my breast as I follow Etienne down the spiral staircase. The stone steps, worn hollow by the passage of generations of feet, are treacherous and the walls seep moisture. The narrow space makes me shudder. Etienne turns and takes my hand as he reaches the bottom.

It’s cold and smells of mould and excrement but a little light filters in from a barred window above. We stand motionless while our eyes grow accustomed to the shadows. All sound is deadened and I shiver as I imagine the thick walls pressing in on me. I cling tightly to Etienne’s hand.

Into the silence comes the clank of metal chains and the rustle of straw. I whirl around and see that there is a barred cell behind us.

‘Auguste?’ says Etienne.

‘Who is it?’ replies a voice, high with fear.

‘D’Aubery.’

‘Thank God! I thought you’d come to torture me. Unlock the door and let me out of here!’

‘Where is your mother?’ I ask.

‘Let me out!’

‘I said, where is Grandmother Moreau?’

A whimper comes from the far corner of the cell. ‘I’m here,’ a voice whispers.

‘Are you all right?’ I ask.

‘Now that you have come…’

‘The keys are behind you!’ Auguste’s voice is on the verge of hysteria. ‘Those bastards put them where I could see them purely to torment me.’

‘And who can blame them?’ retorts Etienne. He runs his hands over the wall until I hear the rattle of a bunch of keys.

A moment later the gate is open and Etienne is unlocking the leg irons that shackle Grandmother Moreau to the wall while I try not to look at the overflowing bucket beside her. The air in here is thick and I feel the stirrings of panic.

‘Release me at once, you dolt!’ orders Auguste with barely repressed fury.

Etienne stands over him, jangling the keys in his hand. ‘Perhaps I’ll leave you here. What do you think, Madeleine? We could open the sluice gates until the moat rises.’

I look at Auguste’s corpulent figure with loathing. ‘An excellent idea, in my opinion.’

Auguste moans. ‘Don’t jest!’

‘I’m not,’ says Etienne.

‘Please, I beg you to free us both,’ says Grandmother Moreau.

I help her to rise from the ground and she stands trembling beside me.

Etienne kneels down and unlocks Auguste’s shackles, pulling him roughly to his feet. ‘You can thank your mother for this,’ he says. ‘I’d far rather leave you here.’

I gasp as a sudden shout comes from above, followed by another, and then there’s the tramp of footsteps clattering down the staircase and a wavering light appears.

Auguste cries out, ‘They’re coming for me!’

Etienne shakes him so hard his teeth rattle. ‘Take control of yourself, man! Is there another way out?’

‘No!’ Auguste pulls himself free from Etienne’s grip.

I glance despairingly at the barred window. Full of dread, I flatten myself against the wall.

Whimpering, Auguste retreats into the cell and crouches on the floor with his hands over his ears.

A crowd of men and women surges down the stairs. They surround us, waving sticks and flaming torches. One man pinions Etienne’s arms roughly behind his back and another prods me in the stomach.

Grandmother Moreau staggers and sinks to the ground.

A torch is thrust into my face and a man yanks my head back by the hair, his face contorted with anger. ‘What are you doing here?’ His breath reeks of garlic.

There’s a babble of questions as we’re shoved back against the cold stone of the wall. I’m shaking, terrified that they’ll lock us up in this terrible dungeon.

Etienne struggles, frees an arm, punches his captor on the nose and receives a blow to the head for his pains.

‘Look, they’ve unlocked Moreau’s chains!’

Seven or eight men form a circle around Auguste and he screams in high-pitched terror as he’s hauled to his feet and pushed from hand to hand like a child’s plaything.

‘String ’im up from the nearest tree, I say!’

‘Hanging’s too good for him. Shove a red-hot poker up his arse!’

Suddenly, over the tumult and the taunting, there comes an ear-splitting whistle.

The mob is stopped in its tracks.

The whistle is repeated and all eyes turn to Etienne. He removes his fingers from between his lips. ‘Stop!’ he commands.

The grip on my hair relaxes and I pull myself free and crouch down to help Grandmother Moreau to her feet. She clings to my hand, trembling uncontrollably.

‘Let the ladies go!’ says Etienne. ‘They have done nothing to harm you.’

Anger sweeps over me in a red tide. ‘You should all be ashamed of yourselves,’ I shout, fixing my gaze on one face after another. ‘Look at this old lady, frightened half to death! Would you do this to your own mothers and grandmothers?’

The men mutter amongst themselves and then one calls out, ‘She’s the Devil’s mother!’

A ripple of laughter echoes around the dungeon.

‘And who are you to come here and try to free the duc?’ shouts another man over the rising cacophony. ‘Lock them all up!’

‘No!’ I struggle but I’m lifted up, carried into the cell and dumped on the floor. A moment later, Etienne lands beside me.

A cacophony of jeers and whistles nearly deafens me as I push myself to my feet in rising panic. Terror at being confined in a small space squeezes the air from my lungs and I gasp for breath.

Then one voice rises above the others. ‘I know these people!’

The muttering dies away and a young man pushes to the front of the throng and holds his torch aloft.

‘You came to see the duc and he had you thrown out.’

At once I recognise the footman who escorted us from the premises.

He laughs and I see that he’s little more than a fresh-faced youth. ‘I remember how you stood up to that useless piece of shit.’ He nods at Auguste, cowering in the corner. ‘You’re Philippe Moreau’s daughter.’ He turns to the others. ‘She has the Moreau ring.’

An old woman waving a large stick peers at me. ‘Philippe’s daughter? Is it possible?’

‘Philippe Moreau was my father.’ I stand up tall and try to still the trembling in my knees. ‘And I’m proud of that. I’m anything but proud, however, to be associated with his brother Auguste.’

The woman pushes her way through the tightly packed throng until she’s standing in front of me. ‘You’re Philippe’s girl?’

I nod.

‘Bring me light!’ she says. She snatches a torch from one of the men and studies my face closely. After a long silence I see tears glinting in her rheumy eyes. ‘Yes, you have Philippe’s likeness.’

I reach inside my collar, fish out the moonstone ring and hold it up to show her.

‘That’s mine!’ shrieks Auguste.

‘No, it isn’t,’ I say. ‘You stole my father’s inheritance and this ring is all that he took from this terrible place.’

The elderly woman reaches out to touch my hand. ‘I was your father’s wet nurse. I loved him and watched him grow up, frightened he would be tainted by the rest of his family.’ She shakes her head. ‘But he never was.’

I frown, trying to remember. ‘Are you Thérèse? Papa rarely talked about his past but he did mention his beloved childhood nurse sometimes.’

Thérèse lifts my hand to her cheek. ‘I helped him escape when the old duc locked him in the dungeon. They left him here to rot when he demanded justice for my brother after the old duc beat him to death. If I hadn’t freed Philippe, he could have died here. I knew he’d never give up demanding justice for André.’

‘I couldn’t help him, Thérèse!’ says Grandmother Moreau, her voice agonised. ‘Do you think I wanted Philippe to be imprisoned in this place? But I dared not flout my husband’s wishes. I tried that once,’ she whispers, ‘and lost the child I carried.’

A man in a brown coat sticks out his unshaven chin and narrows his eyes at me. ‘What d’you want here? This place is ours now.’

‘I don’t want the château.’ I shudder. ‘And neither did my father.’

‘Mademoiselle Moreau and I have not come here to cause any of you trouble,’ says Etienne. ‘You are welcome to the château as far as…’

‘Shut up, d’Aubery!’ yells Auguste. ‘It’s not yours to give away. And you, Gaston, I’ll have you horsewhipped for your insolence!’

One of the men slams Auguste back against the wall.

Etienne continues as if he hasn’t been interrupted. ‘Mademoiselle Moreau wants nothing but to remove her grandmother and uncle from your presence.’ He glances at me. ‘And I solemnly undertake to escort them both out of France.’

I catch my breath.

‘You can’t make me go!’ Auguste struggles furiously in his captors’ arms.

‘Oh, I think we can,’ says Etienne, looking meaningfully at the others. ‘Don’t you?’ He catches the footman’s eye. ‘As you say, Auguste is a useless piece of shit and I can save you all the trouble of having his blood on your conscience.’

The men and women begin to argue fiercely amongst themselves, and I hear Thérèse’s pleading tones above the growl of the men’s deeper voices. I glance fearfully at Etienne.

His mouth is set but he darts a smile at me. ‘Courage!’ he whispers.

‘Quiet!’ Gaston glares at the crowd. ‘We shall discuss this upstairs.’

‘A trial!’ shouts a voice.

I cry out in terror as Gaston slams shut the iron gate of the cell and our captors march away up the stairs.

I grasp the iron bars and shake the gate but it’s immovable.

And then there is only the sound of receding footsteps and my grandmother’s weeping.

The air is fetid and my heart is fluttering as I picture the great mass of the château pressing down upon us from above. Panic constricts my chest. I dare not scream or I may never stop. I sit on the filthy straw with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees to still the shaking.

Etienne sits close beside me. ‘I should never have let you come,’ he says.

‘I’m frightened,’ I whisper. ‘I hate small spaces.’

‘I don’t like them much myself,’ he says, putting his arm around my shoulders.

He appears perfectly composed but I can feel the slight tremor in his fingers and remember that this is a recurrence of his worst childhood nightmare. I lean against him and for his sake force myself to breathe slowly and try to empty my mind of anxious thoughts.

I don’t know how much time passes but eventually the glimmer of light begins to fade from the barred window.

‘It seems they’re not going to release us tonight,’ says Etienne, a muscle flexing in his jaw.

I shudder as I fight down the panic I feel.

Grandmother Moreau and I take it in turns to suffer the indignity of squatting over the bucket and then we lie down on the hard floor to sleep.

The absence of light becomes total and soon Auguste’s snores reverberate around the cell.

Wide-eyed with fear I stare into the suffocating blackness, my pulse hammering in my chest and my breathing ragged. Etienne’s hand reaches out to me and I grip it, holding on to him as the one safe thing in this terrible place.

The straw rustles as he turns over and I don’t resist when he gathers me to him. We lie on our sides facing each other, with our foreheads and knees touching and our breath mingling. Gently, he strokes my hair, smoothing it off my forehead and lulling my fevered thoughts. Little by little, the tension drains from my muscles and I let it go with a long sigh.

He caresses my cheek, tracing the line of my jaw with a touch as light as thistledown. I banish all thoughts, forgetting my terror and the hard floor beneath us. There is only this moment and the soft touch of Etienne’s finger on my lips. Powerless to resist, my mouth opens a little.

He makes a small sound and then he is smothering my throat, my eyelids and my mouth with hot kisses. Perhaps it is the total darkness that makes me so shameless but I press the length of my body against his and return his kisses with abandon. Cupping my face in his hands, he kisses me until rising desire makes me tremble with longing.

At last he draws away a little, his breath fast and uneven. He touches his lips against my forehead and enfolds me in his arms so tightly that I couldn’t escape, even if I wanted to. Gradually, his hold slackens and he sighs deeply. Turning on to his back, he settles my head on the hollow of his shoulder and rests his hand against the curve of my hip.

I listen to the regular thud of his heartbeat and think that if the mob murders me in the morning, at least I shall have had one night in his arms.

As I drift off to sleep I hear him whisper, ‘Goodnight, my love.’

 

 

My eyes flutter open. A glimmer of grey light filters through the barred window and there’s a pain in my hip from lying on the hard ground.

Etienne lies beside me, looking curiously young in repose. His jet black eyebrows are finely drawn and thick lashes fringe the curve of his closed eyelids. Heavy stubble shadows his jaw.

He opens his eyes and a sleepy smile curves his mouth as he picks a piece of straw out of my hair.