The French House by Helen Fripp (english readers TXT) 📗

‘What’s the matter? Your hands are shaking so much the glasses are clinking. Here, let me help you. Get under the covers.’

She got in next to him, put her head on his chest and gazed up at the stars. He was ice cold, even under a pile of furs. A fixed roof would help on this derelict old place. What were they thinking, dashing here on an unseasonably cold night?

‘See that one, straight above? Orion, the hunter. The three vertical stars are his sword. I used to think while he was in the sky that I was protected, but I’m not so sure now.’

‘What do you mean?’

His voice was distant; something wasn’t right.

She turned to kiss him, but he was already asleep, his breathing shallow and fitful. Clouds covered the moon and the sky turned damp grey. François shuddered in his sleep. She pulled the covers up to his chin and wished they were at home with a fire burning.

Sleep eluded her. Nicole got up, walked out into the night air so she could think, stumbling while her eyes got used to the dark.

They’d ploughed everything they had into the business. Regret was useless, but it caught in her throat, weighed her shoulders. Things hadn’t ever been this bad.

She kept walking. Owls called unspoken regrets into the night. Dawn was a watery streak in a grey sky, revealing shrivelled vine leaves and dried-out grapes.

She trudged back to the hut and touched his cheek to gently wake him. Brushing a fly from his eye, she gasped. It was wet. She bent closer. Blood! She grabbed a lantern and held it close to his face. He was crying blood! She pulled him upright. He slumped to the side. She shook him. He grunted, but didn’t wake. She dabbed the blood with her dress.

‘François! François, for God’s sake, wake up,’ she whispered. Then screamed. ‘Help! Someone. Help us!’

A flock of starlings screeched overhead.

She ran to the door. Thank God, workers were moving amongst the vines. ‘Help!’

A figure came running, brandishing a stick. Xavier. She dragged him to François.

‘Christ.’ He felt for a pulse and crossed himself. ‘Jesus Christ. Holy mother of God. Stay with him. I’ll get the doctor.’

‘Hurry!’ she croaked.

She warmed him with her body. Covered his hands with hers, entwined her legs with his. He didn’t move. She prayed. She cried. The embers hissed and spat. The starlings shifted direction in the sky. She knew then his soul was leaving. She pressed her body tighter against his.

‘Don’t go, François. Stay with me.’

Then she saw it, on the ground next to the bed. An empty phial of rat poison.

‘Sweet Jesus, François.’

She checked herself. Just a coincidence. Everyone kept rat poison somewhere on their property.

Horses’ hooves threw up dust at the door. She shoved the phial under the bed.

The doctor rushed in. Warm hands helped her up.

‘Let me look at him, Madame.’

He tried to rouse François, listened for his heart, felt his pulse, on one wrist, then the other. He turned to face Nicole and shook his head gravely.

‘I’m sorry.’

Her knees gave way as she tried to push past the doctor to reach his lifeless body.

Xavier helped her up and led her gently to the fire. ‘Let him do his work.’ He kept his hand on her shoulder, bowing his head.

The doctor pulled away the bedclothes, unbuttoned François’ waistcoat and shirt. She gasped. Black spots covered his skin.

‘Typhoid, Madame. A classic case.’

She hid her face in Xavier’s jacket. He hadn’t taken the poison, she couldn’t have prevented it and he didn’t want to leave her, but what difference did it make now?

The doctor continued, ‘The black spots, the bleeding. It’s very contagious. It’s taken half the camp of soldiers out on the plain. It’s the close quarters that spreads it. I’m so sorry, Madame Clicquot. It comes quickly. Xavier will take you home. Leave the rest to me. I will prescribe something to help you sleep.’

‘You’re not the usual doctor.’ Why did she care about that now when her world had just fallen apart?

‘Doctor Moreau. Xavier knows me and you can leave everything with me. Your family doctor is away, I’m afraid. Now sleep.’

The sleeping powder drained her strength, but Nicole couldn’t sleep and the tears wouldn’t stop. Clémentine’s hand turned cold in hers as she muttered about heaven and a deathly reunion.

‘Will he come back?’ she asked, her voice quavering.

‘No, sweetheart. He won’t come back.’

‘Why do you look sad? I’m scared. I want Papa!’

‘Come here, Mentine. Just give me a cuddle.’

Mentine was rigid in her arms.

Sleep came, then went. Every time she woke, she remembered, and it broke her anew. When her parents arrived, they prised Mentine’s fingers off her, took her away and sent her to bed, tucking the sheets in tight as a grave.

Nicole woke at dawn. François was there in the half-light. She reached out but he was gone. Shadows breathed loneliness. Among it all, a question like an alarm bell clanging inside her head.

Rain battered down all day, lashed the windows all night. Nicole flung the sleeping powder in the bin. Useless. No powder could smudge reality. A lit candle chased away the shadows. She blew it out, in case he was there, in the darkness, needing her. The night of Moët’s ball turned to nightmares. She hadn’t noticed enough, too busy showing off to Napoléon, not seeing his suffering. God didn’t care about her prayers for sleep, and the night stretched into longing.

The next day dawned, dragging up a weak, reluctant sun, the rain still falling in rods. She was in their grand town house – she couldn’t bear to visit their little sunlit house in Bouzy where they had been so happy – so she could slip straight into town unnoticed, and find out the answers to her burning questions. If she left now, the household would still be asleep.

She scrabbled in her drawer for her black veil and slipped out of the back door. The rain froze her dress to her skin; her heartbeat churned