A Ghost in Monte Carlo

Chapter OneThere was the sound of footsteps crossing the landing, the rattle of a laden breakfast tray being set down on a table, a little rasping cough and lastly a light knock on the bedroom door. Without waiting for a reply Jeanne entered and crossed the room to draw back the curtains. Watching her figure, bulky and indistinct in the shrouded light, Emilie wondered how many years it was since she had first been wakened by those familiar sounds. It was never the opening of the door which roused her, but the preliminaries to it – Jeanne’s footsteps on the landing, the rattle of the breakfast tray and her cough. Was it eighteen years that Jeanne had been in her employment? No, nineteen, and they had known each other since childhood. The curtains slid back to reveal a wintry day, the roofs of Paris grey and damp beneath a dull sky through which a pale sun was striving ineffectually to shine. Emilie sat up in bed with a sharp movement. She had been awake for a long time, indeed it was doubtful if she had slept more than an hour or two the whole night, and glancing at her reflection in the dressing table mirror which faced the bed, she was well aware that the sleepless hours had taken their toll. She looked old this morning, old and unattractive, although perhaps the colour of her hair had something to do with that. But Emilie had no time to think of herself. There were other and more important things which required her attention. Slipping her arms into a dressing jacket of thick wool, Emilie patted her pillows behind her and waited until Jeanne had set down her breakfast. She seemed to take an unconscionable time in doing so and then she began to rearrange the tray with care, moving first the coffee pot a trifle to the left, then the cup and saucer a little to the right, and now it appeared that a spoon required her attention. Emilie was not deceived. She knew well that Jeanne was waiting for her to speak. Sharply, because it always annoyed her when Jeanne forestalled her decisions, she said, ‘Shut the door, Jeanne.’ ‘Oui, Madame, I was just about to do so.’ Then hurry, and sit down while I talk, for you must listen attentively. There is much for us to do.’ Jeanne crossed the room, walking as if her legs were stiff and her feet hurt a little. She had the large bones and slow movements of a peasant from one of the Northern Departments. Her hair was grey, but her face was curiously unlined and her eyes were as bright as a child’s. At sixty she had no difficulty in doing the finest and most delicate embroidery. Jeanne closed the door and returned to the bedside, settling herself on a hard chair, her work-roughened hands clasped together in her lap. Emilie, glancing at her over the rim of her coffee cup, though she looked like a schoolgirl waiting for her teacher to speak, and felt annoyed by the impression. Jeanne was both her friend and her confidante, and yet at times she deliberately assumed the humility and servile disinterestedness of an ordinary servant. This usually meant that she was hurt or annoyed, and with what was for her an unusually clear perception Emilie realised that at the moment Jeanne was both these things. So she knew then! All the trouble they had taken last night to move quietly so as not to waken her had been unnecessary. Jeanne had been awake and now was resentful that she had not been called downstairs. Emilie set down her coffee cup with a clatter in the saucer. ‘Jeanne, something occurred last night,’ she said. ‘A visitor arrived.’ ‘Indeed, Madame!’ Jeanne’s reply was without surprise. Quite unexpectedly Emilie laughed. ‘Stop looking injured, Jeanne! You know as well as I do that someone came here unexpectedly, I repeat unexpectedly. I had no idea she was coming, not for three weeks at any rate, and long before that I meant to tell you all about it. The child informs me that she wrote four days ago, but the post is so abominable that her letter has never been received. Think of it Jeanne, the poor girl arriving alone at the station with no one to meet her, no one to welcome her. She had barely enough money for a conveyance.’ ‘It is Mademoiselle who has arrived then,’ Jeanne said sourly. Emilie was still smiling good-humouredly. ‘You know very well that it is Mademoiselle, for if you have not already inspected her luggage in the hall, you have peeped into the guest bedroom to look at her. She is still asleep, I suppose?’ Jeanne forgot her pride. ‘Oui, oui, Madame, she is sleeping like an angel! When I saw her, my heart almost stopped beating. “A veritable angel”, I said, “from Heaven itself.” ‘The child is pretty,’ Emilie agreed. ‘I had always believed that she would be so, but this last year has made all the difference. She is eighteen! Can you believe, Jeanne, that eighteen years have passed since Alice died?’ Emilie’s voice was suddenly raw with pain, her lips tightened and her eyes seemed to narrow a little. Then with a gesture she thrust her breakfast tray aside and went on, her voice rising, ‘Attention, Jeanne, for there is a great deal to be done this very instant.’ ‘I am listening, Madame.’ Jeanne’s voice was calm, but her eyes never left Emilie’s face. She noticed every change of expression, every flicker of the dark eyes, every twitch of the thin, hard lips. At times Emilie Bleuet looked compellingly handsome, but this morning was not one of them. The clear light was piteously revealing and every wrinkle, every line on her thin face seemed to be magnified. It contrived, too, to illuminate the discoloured skin of her neck, the sagging jawline, the deep frown between her eyebrows and the long lines etching themselves from her nostrils to the thin curves of her mouth. But there was nothing unusual in this. Jeanne was familiar with the best and worst of Emilie’s looks, and it was no secret between the two women that, although their birth date was the same, Emilie was the younger by only twelve months. Jeanne had been born on the 7th January, 1814, Emilie the following year. Emilie was therefore fifty-nine, and at that age no woman could expect the hand of time to lie anything but heavily upon her. But what was strange was the excitement in Emilie’s expression. Jeanne had never known her so excited, with a kind of inner tension which made her eyes glitter and affected her speech. Only in moments of stress and of complete self-forgetfulness did Emilie relapse into her native accent. Usually her French was Parisian, careful, formal and spoken in a voice of frigid impassivity. But this morning her voice was the echo of Jeanne’s, and anyone listening to them would have known that they both hailed from the shores of Brittany. Emilie drew a deep breath and then she began, ‘I planned to tell you all this, Jeanne, in a few days’ time. I was expecting my niece to arrive at the end of this month. I was indeed astonished to see her when she came here last night. She tells me that the Reverend Mother of the Convent died and the Nuns decided to send the pupils home three weeks earlier than had been intended. Mademoiselle wrote to me, but, as I have already said, the letter has not arrived.’ Emilie paused for a moment, her fingers meshing together, then she looked at Jeanne and her voice sank to little more than a whisper. ‘Today, Jeanne,’ she said, ‘we start a new life, you and I. The past is finished.’ ‘A new life, Madame!’ Jeanne echoed. ‘But what can you mean by that?’ ‘What I say,’ Emilie snapped, and her voice was normal again. ‘This is no figure of speech, Jeanne, but a sober fact. The day before yesterday I sold the business.’ ‘Madame!’ There was no mistaking the astonishment in Jeanne’s voice now. ‘Yes, I sold it, and sold it well. No one, I venture to think, could have done better. But from today, Jeanne, Numéro cinq Rue de Roi has ceased to exist as far as we are concerned, in fact it never has existed. And Madame Bleuet is dead too.’ Is that why you have changed your hair, Madame?’ Jeanne asked. ‘Exactly!’ Emilie said, looking again at her reflection in the mirror. ‘My hair is grey, as God intended it to be! It ages me, Jeanne, but there is no reason now for me to look young or attractive. Indeed, I have other plans, quite different plans. I am going to be a Countess, Jeanne – Madame La Comtesse. It sounds well, doesn’t it? That is what I intend to be from today and you must not forget it.’ Mon Dieu! But, I, how can you? I mean – ’ ‘Listen, Jeanne, and do not interrupt. We have very little time. In a short while Mademoiselle will be awake and our story must be clear. I am Madame la Comtesse. I have married and been widowed. You must remember, Jeanne, that Mademoiselle did not know of Monsieur Bleuet. I never told her about him. When I visited the Convent, I went there as Mademoiselle Riguad. I communicated both with the Nuns and with Mademoiselle in the same manner. It was safer from every point of view and now I am thankful I was so cautious. ‘Now for your part – a few days ago as I was passing down the Rue de Madeleine I saw some baggage for sale in a shop window. It was a poor shop which sells shop soiled or second hand articles. There was quite a quantity of luggage, Jeanne, of good solid leather and stamped with a coronet. You will go this morning and buy it for me. It will lend support to my story.’ ‘Luggage, Madame? Then you intend to go away?’ ‘Yes, Jeanne, I am leaving here and you – are coming with us – with Mademoiselle and myself. I told you the past was dead, the future begins.’ ‘But where are we going, Madame? And why this pretence?’ ‘I shall not tell you all my secrets, Jeanne. I have never done that, have I? I prefer to work alone, for it is wiser that way. I have only myself to blame if things go wrong, but this time they will not go wrong, they will succeed! For eighteen years I have planned for this moment and worked for it. Yes, worked hard! All I have done has been for this.’ Emilie’s voice seemed almost to hiss the words. Her eyes were mere slits in her bloodless face. Then with a sudden change of expression she threw out her hands. ‘Do not look so bewildered, Jeanne. You have but to trust me. Hurry and buy the luggage, for we shall need it. Then there are my clothes to be seen to, most of the gowns are useless.’ ‘Useless?’ Jeanne’s tone as she echoed the word was more bewildered than ever. But of course! Quite useless! I am an aristocrat, Jeanne, a lady! Open the door of the wardrobe and tell me how many of the dresses hanging there will be suitable for me now.’ Obediently and half as if she were hypnotised Jeanne crossed the room to the huge mahogany wardrobe which occupied the whole of one wall of the bedroom. With a gesture she threw open the double doors. The wardrobe was tightly packed with gowns of all descriptions. They seemed, as they hung there, blended into all the colours of the rainbow, to come alive, for the frills, ribbons and laces with which they were trimmed fluttered in the draught caused by the opening of the doors. ‘You can sell them for me,’ Emilie said from the bed. They will not fetch much, but Widow Wyatt in the Market – cheat though she is – will give you a better price than anyone else. Tell her what they cost and drive the best bargain you can. There is the green velveteen new but these three months, and the cyclamen satin de laine which was only delivered a week before Christmas.’ ‘Oui, Madame, you have only worn the cyclamen three times!’ As she spoke, Jeanne took the gown almost lovingly from its hanger. Of satin with wide crepeline frills, it was ornamented with bows of velvet ribbon, the corsage and narrow sleeves besprinkled with diamanté. It was obvious that the dress was expensive, but in the morning light it looked garish. There was something common and also suggestive about it as it hung from Jeanne’s hands, its boned bodice billowing out as if it still concealed some ghostly figure within it.