Adam Gould Page 6

  By then, unknown to Adam, the Paris which Thady Quill had discovered in the wake of Uncle Charles, was quite gone. Quill’s wild prediction that a storm could be brewing and the metropolis going the way of Sodom had proven sound. The Prussian invasion intervened between the writing of his dispatches and Adam’s arrival in the cold corridors of his petit seminaire, and so had the massacres of Parisians by Parisians. Having been pent up by the Prussian siege and reduced to eating rats, they later behaved like rats and vented their fury on each other. How many perished? Twenty thousand? Forty? Reports varied, but agreed that the Seine had run red. Many more were transported or gaoled or fled into exile with the result that now, twenty years on, an appetite for revenge was once again biding its time. Meanwhile, Uncle Charles too had fallen on bad days and was eking out a diminished income in a cheap spa town. He had become an unlucky gambler and, even when peace and normality returned, did not recover.

  Thady Quill, though, when Adam finally found him, was portly and friendly, had a French wife, spoke an eloquent, if eccentric lingua franca and was a father of three. He was prospering and kept a discreetly curtained, upstairs shop where strong smells like essence de térébenthine and pomander balls succeeded most of the time in drowning out less salubrious ones. His merchandise was second-hand apparel of a superior sort which gentlemen’s valets and ladies’ maids brought to sell when their employers fell ill, died, moved to North Africa, grew suddenly fat, came out of mourning or for some other reason, whether compelling or frivolous, wished to get rid of their wardrobe. His wife, a former lady’s maid, could cut and sew, had a network of connections and had introduced him to the trade. He welcomed Adam warmly and rigged him out on tick, providing well-cut outfits with which to present himself to Dr Blanche and enable him to put his days as a seminarian firmly behind him. It was like a carnival: the speed, the choice, the faint sense of illegitimacy and impersonation. Real gentlemen would have had their tailor measure their inner calf and other specifics, which would then be carefully recorded for future use. It was unusual to buy garments which one could don forthwith or, after some shifting of hems or buttons, have delivered next day. Were Quill’s customers all escapists and contrivers? Adam didn’t ask.

  Though pleased with his nearly-new, snuff-brown velvet jacket, striped trousers, curly-brimmed hat and fine frock-coat, he was slightly uneasy at the thought of coming face to face with their original owner – or, worse, with that owner’s valet whose eye would be sharper and who, anyway, would be the man who had ripped out the label bearing the owner’s and tailor’s names before selling the garment on to Quill. When fashionable gentlemen came to Dr Blanche’s luncheons, Adam found himself checking the width of their shoulders – his own were broad – and, since noting that Maupassant’s girth must once have been close to his, felt nervous of Tassart. At any moment the manservant could exclaim: ‘Ah, so you’re the one who bought the jacket! Not too many would have the right athletic build! Bought it from Monsieur Quill then, did you?’ Not that he ever would! A valet’s prime qualification was a well-buttoned lip. Nervous fancies, though, were deaf to reason.

  Adam knew that, in the grand scheme of things, neither clothes nor vanity mattered a jot. But then private perspectives were rarely grand. Just now, for instance, he found himself idly staring down the dim corridor to where the two ladies still sat in each other’s embrace and in that of a sunset brightness flooding pinkly from a source he couldn’t see, so that, like figures in religious paintings, they seemed to generate it themselves. Dreamily, he imagined sliding into it too and actually experienced waves of a mounting pleasure which dissolved his thoughts in its glow. On becoming conscious of what was happening, he found that it was his body, not his clothes, which was likely to embarrass him.

  A raised voice interrupted this reverie.

  As if thinking of him had conjured him up, the valet stood framed in the drawing room doorway, at the far end of the corridor, where he paused, then turned to launch some words over his shoulder. ‘It is not my place to criticize, Madame, but, speaking with respect, you tricked me. Si, si, Madame, you deliberately kept me talking while Mademoiselle Litzelmann slipped behind my back and upset my poor master. As for the “love” she likes to talk about,’ Tassart allowed himself a sneer, ‘I don’t think she has shown much. Love cherishes, Madame. It gives life and helps preserve it. But Mademoiselle Litzelmann has put poor Monsieur’s health at risk. If he does not recover, the fault will be partly hers!’

  What attachment he feels, Adam marvelled, then surprised himself by thinking ‘it seems almost motherly’. Though he had lived in an all-male world in his seminary, this sort of closeness had not been possible.

  Tassart now walked in Adam’s direction. His lean lips were clamped in anger. He was, Adam noticed for the first time, younger than his master. As he drew level, he murmured, ‘I can’t think how those vampires got in! Who was in charge, Gould? You? If my master had come home with me, they would never have got near him. He would have been safe in our neighbourhood, where people are fond of him. Our tradesmen keep asking for him. They all agree that he should come home.’

  Stung, Adam tried mounting a defensive attack. ‘So,’ he teased, ‘you and your butcher and baker have been gossiping. Maybe you started the stories which reached the newspapers.’

  Tassart said quietly, ‘All any newsmonger could have learned from us was that my master was a straight, kind, decent man and that we are devoted to him.’ He turned away, leaving Adam feeling neither straight nor decent, and just a bit embarrassed.

  But already the valet was back. ‘They shouldn’t be here.’ Nodding towards the drawing room. ‘Mademoiselle Litzelmann’s name is on the list of people who shouldn’t be let in. It probably tops that list. You must get her out.’

  Adam did not want to expel the anxious young woman whose plight was not unlike the one in which his mother had found herself at the end. She too must have hoped – but he couldn’t bear to dwell on that. He said, ‘The other lady seems to have taken her under her wing. Madame d’Armaillé. And she is a guest here.’

  ‘Maybe, but la Litzelmann ...’

  ‘Is Monsieur de Maupassant the father of her children?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Tassart’s face was hard. ‘At all events he has provided for them. Think of it, Gould. She was just a girl in a spa, whose job was handing cups of water to the patients. What future had she? What security? She is better off now than when he met her.’

  ‘And she wants – what?’

  ‘Him to legitimize them. She wants respectability.’ Tassart shrugged. ‘His mother won’t have it. Madame Laure.’

  Again Adam thought of his mother. ‘It seems hard!’ he ventured.

  ‘Gould, it is not our place to decide.’

  ‘What has place to do with it?’

  ‘Everything, surely. This is a nursing home. His health could suffer! I cannot think how you ...’

  ‘Oh, very well! I shall ask her to leave. Come with me, will you? She might make difficulties if I went alone.’

  In the drawing room Mademoiselle Litzelmann’s eyelids were rosily swollen. She rubbed the back of a hand across them. Deftly, as though catching a moth, the other lady grasped and held the damp hand while hailing the two men.

  ‘Ah,’ she exclaimed, ‘here is François Tassart back with my uncle’s saviour! Monsieur Gould, yes?’

  As if to imply that the weeping was to be ignored, she hid her companion’s hand in a scarf. ‘My uncle and the monsignor are conspiring,’ she told Adam affably, ‘so we have been excluded. I was wondering if we could impose on your hospitality. Mademoiselle Litzelmann came here on foot and is thirsty.’

  ‘She didn’t come in your carriage then?’

  ‘Only through the gate.’ Madame d’Armaillé was unembarrassed. ‘Is it possible to find her some refreshment? Barley water would do.’

  Tassart, who seemed not to have heard, was staring at Adam’s coat collar. ‘May I,’ he stepped behind him, ‘see the garment i
n the light?’ As he murmured ‘It’s soiled,’ Mademoiselle Litzelmann retrieved her hand and blew her nose.

  Soiled? Sold? Adam’s body was behaving in an unaccountable way. He felt feverish.

  Fingers fumbled his neck. Was the valet trying to read the label? Adam prayed not to be embarrassed in front of the beautiful Madame d’Armaillé. He was unused to being touched.

  ‘We don’t want to inconvenience you,’ she claimed, but he guessed that doing so wouldn’t bother her at all. His skin was hot. He wondered if the valet noticed.

  ‘Do you want to take it off a moment? I could attend to it better.’

  Adam, whose namesake had masked his nakedness with leaves, felt in need of some cover. Tassart’s fossicking hands tickled and Adam spun away from them in a cloud of powder. Might his jacket have been Maupassant’s?

  ‘Talc!’ Tassart was wielding a small brush. ‘I always carry this. The powder sinks into the velvet pile. I thought I noticed this earlier. Couldn’t be sure in the dark of that corridor.’ Peeling back Adam’s collar, he scrubbed, then, moving to the fireplace, shook his brush out over the grate. ‘It can look like dandruff.’

  ‘It’s from Dr Blanche’s gloves,’ Adam remembered with relief. ‘Il m’a blanchi!’

  Madame d’Armaillé’s full-throated laugh at this weary joke was unexpected. She’s young, he remembered, and felt friendlier towards her. ‘Why don’t we all have some port,’ he suggested, ‘to raise our spirits. Or Marsala?’ He took decanters and glasses from a cupboard and put them on an intarsia table inlaid with festive motifs. ‘We’ll each drink a thimbleful, shall we? Then, though, I must ask Mademoiselle Litzelmann to leave. I have no choice. The director left precise instructions, and Monsieur Tassart may well get me into hot water over your being here at all. He is almost certainly about to say that it isn’t his place to drink in the drawing room. Perhaps it isn’t mine either, or Mademoiselle Litzelmann’s. But, in a house like this, places shift. And many have no idea where they belong.’

  To Adam’s surprise, Tassart, when his turn came, accepted two glasses in quick succession and promptly drained both. They all drank, even Mademoiselle Litzelmann, who had stopped crying. Tassart looked as though he might be thinking of taking the floor.

  ‘Biscuits?’ Adam brought out a jar of langues de chat and handed them round. Soon there were sounds of delicate crunching and a scent of vanilla. Crumbs drifted and were brushed away.

  ‘I have no wish,’ the valet wiped his lips, ‘to cause pain. But, for her own sake, Mademoiselle Litzelmann should know how hopeless her endeavours are. I understand why she keeps on with them because for a long time I too refused to accept what was happening to my poor master. There were remissions, and with each our hopes would revive. A change of air, a trip in his yacht, even a visit to a spa could brighten his mood, and when it did, how could we – he and I – help thinking he was on the mend? In the end though – this was ten months ago – I had to admit to myself that our interests were no longer the same, and that if I didn’t ask him for a character reference soon I risked being unable to get employment when he was gone. Delicacy, you see, Gould, was beyond my means. Servants like me have a professional need to understand it but can rarely afford it. This is painful, and in my master’s case it forced me to cause him pain too. Just now you mentioned “my place”, and this reminded me that I cannot hope to find another one such as I had with him. He got me used to being treated like a man of feeling. That rarely happens to a servant. Do you mind if I take another glass of port? Thank you. Forgive me if I sound upset. I have been so for some time, you see. Not only on his account! On my own too. For nine years my life revolved around his. So did his mother’s, of course, though in a quite different way. He was hers. She called him “My son the great man!” whereas I was just his man – a small man. But, unlike her, I was there all the time. Close up. Nursing and sharing. I’m a bit overcome. I’ll try to be quick. I am hoping to make Mademoiselle Litzelmann see that those close to Monsieur have to give up their closeness. You’ll see what I mean if you imagine my dilemma ten months ago. To ask for a reference meant letting poor Monsieur know how desperate his case was. This could damage him, but, short of destroying myself, what could I do? There was no concealing my motive. No softening pretence would have worked. Not only had he, as a writer, trained himself to see through such camouflage, but two years before, he had seen his brother, Monsieur Hervé, go mad, be committed to an asylum and die. Indeed Monsieur Guy himself had had to commit him.’

  Tassart put down the glass, which was again empty. ‘When I asked for the reference, he saw what was in my mind. I saw him see it. But instead of giving way to the terror I must have provoked, he took his pen, wrote out a generous certificat and gave it to me, and I ... well, all I had the nerve to do was sidle from the room. Just then the sane one was he, not I. Sane and gallant! I am telling you this, Mademoiselle, to let you know that I have been in your shoes. The difference is that in your case it is too late. The doctors have pronounced their verdict. No document he signed now would be legally valid. And as regards our own feelings, Mademoiselle, those of us who plan to live break faith with the dying. Allow me to walk you to the village.’

  Tassart picked up the cloak which Mademoiselle Litzelmann had discarded on a chair, and put it around her.

  She seemed about to make an appeal, then instead, drew herself up mutely, embraced Madame d’Armaillé, accepted her card, bowed, straightened her hat, and walked out followed by the valet. Both moved as though thwarted feelings were hampering the flow of their breath.

  Madame d’Armaillé stared after them. ‘I wonder,’ she murmured, ‘if that man is telling the truth? He seems goodhearted.’ While she drank up the last of her port, Adam imagined the sweetness of it on her tongue, and his own tongue curled against his palate. ‘Well,’ she reflected, ‘I suppose that in a place like this you must all be used to strong emotions!’

  He could think of nothing to say. He and she had been left together as abruptly as two chaperones whose charges have gone to dance. For an instant he imagined waltzing with her. Not that he knew how! The only dancing he had ever done was as a child in Ireland, when he had been let join in the romping that sometimes took place on late summer afternoons, to the scrape of a fiddle, at a crossroads. Small fry like himself had rarely done more than caper back and forth, but the skilled dancers’ fast footwork carried rhythms as deftly as the bow on the strings. They held their upper bodies rigid, and their motto ‘Death in the eyes and the devil in the heels!’ was as stern as the monastic one about keeping ‘custody of the eyes’! Adam’s eyes just now were in tight custody. He moved to the window.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ his companion wondered.

  ‘If you mean will she easily get back to Paris, the answer is “yes”. She can get a tram,’ he told her, ‘to the place de la Concorde. Or take the little train to St Lazare.’ He looked out to where grimy shadows had begun to sink and thicken like tea-dregs. This side of the château faced downhill towards the quai de Passy. Outside its windows, steps, railed in by fine ironwork, divided in two elegant volutes then, when these rejoined, continued a stately descent towards a tumble of bleak, wintry lawns. Far below, the Seine gave off the opaque gleam of a great, grey eel. Bare branches scribbled on a dimming sky. To the side of the steps, two people were planting something. ‘Oh,’ he exclaimed, ‘there’s Maupassant. With Baron. They must have seen the others leave or they would not have ventured out.’

  ‘May I see?’

  Madame d’Armaillé stood behind him. Still as a birdwatcher, he sensed her shape in slight displacements of the air. The back of his neck, sensitized by the teasing of Tassart’s brush, felt as if tiny antennae were embedded in each pore. He recognized a situation with which he had been trained to deal. This young, married, well-born woman was triply tabooed! In the seminary, such cases had been discussed with precision. Temptation! It was one which his clerical classmates planned to face in their future parishes as zestfu
lly as St George had confronted his dragon. A pleasure renounced, their teachers assured them, brought more complex satisfactions than carnal enjoyment. The mind, after all ...

  Heliotrope!

  He inhaled. It was the scent from her dress and the name for plants which turn towards the sun! He felt the warmth of her breath. His mother had worn heliotrope.

  ‘Which one,’ she wanted to know, ‘is Monsieur de Maupassant? Isn’t he famous? Will he be upset if he sees us looking? Which is he?’

  ‘The one with a beard. I’ll open this window a crack. Then we’ll hear what his mood is like.’

  Cold air knifed in. Just yards away, the writer was too intent to notice them. Bending over a basket of whittled stakes, such as gardeners use for seedlings, he was trying to drive them into the frozen crust of a flowerbed. His voice floated hoarsely towards them.

  ‘See, Baron, next spring, there will be a crop of small Maupassants here. Each of these sticks will grow into a Maupassant. I’m not joking! Drive in your stick and out pops your greedy, little replacement which in no time at all will be big enough to shove you into the earth! Soil is dangerously fertile. La Litzelmann, for instance, was fertility itself! Stick it into her once and she began to puff up. The reproduction business is nauseatingly predictable and ...’