The House Above the River, page 20
“Why do you repeat these out-worn platitudes, like an old parrot? You know nothing about English people. I cannot imagine why you married my father. Or why he married you.”
She was silent, then, but not for long.
“You have no proof! At the end, it was her own doing.”
“I have enough. You wore my boots to go down to the stage; to take away the rope; to dig out the foot of the ladder. Oh, yes, Louis says he did it all, as a first step in preparing to mend the ladder. He had no idea that anyone would want to use it that day. He actually showed Renaud all this.”
“You see. Nobody would believe your story. You have no proof.”
“I know, and Marie and Lucette know, that Louis did not go down through the woods that afternoon. And I did not go; I was with the sergeant of police. But I know, and Giles Armitage knows, that my boots were used. The mud on them was fresh.”
“You had come ashore across the mud.”
“I was carried ashore,” said Henry, “and Inspector Renaud was watching.”
Madame Francine stiffened. But she did not give in.
“Has the Englishman, Armitage, spoken?”
“I have not been accused. So I imagine, not.”
“In your account, you accuse me?”
“In my account, I describe your crime, and confess my own suspicions of it and my cowardly inaction.”
“When will it be finished?”
“Very soon. Unless you kill me first.”
A little pitying smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.
“And if I destroy the papers, instead?”
“I will write it again. And again, if necessary. In the end, it will be finished. You will not be safe until I die.”
“Are you asking me to kill you, my son?”
“I want to be with Miriam, my wife, my love. You will not be safe or happy until I am dead.”
“Happy!”
That broke her at last. She found her way to the door and went out, and shut it behind her, leaning against it with her forehead pressed to the wood, in an agony of despair. Her defeat was total, her myth of herself broken and withered. She was alone: she who had never been alone in Penguerrec, but always commanded a faithful following, as far back into childhood as she could remember. She had lost their support by her own actions. They had approved the hunting of Miriam, but the kill had shocked them. They had grown soft. They condemned her. They turned from her. In the village no one would speak to her. That was bad, but at home it was worse. She had fought to possess her son, and she had lost him for ever. Nothing remained. No hope. No future.
After a time the old woman pulled herself away from the door and went into the dining-room, where the soup lay waiting, cold and congealed in the bowl. She sat down in her place at the head of the table, and taking up the carving-knife bared her left wrist. There was nothing left now in her life. It was time to go.
But she paused, the big knife swaying in the air. It was not that she lacked courage: excess of it had brought her to her present predicament. But a thought had come to her, compelling attention from her shrewd, deeply superstitious mind. Miriam had confessed her sins, repented, died in grace. She would have a long purgatory, but in the end, in the far future, she would be joined with Henry in paradise. But for herself, a suicide, damned eternally, there would be no such reunion. She had lost the battle on earth; or rather, had gained an empty victory; she would not be trapped into losing it, finally and forever, in the world to come.
She laid down the carving-knife, and rising from her chair, took up the tureen of soup and carried it away to the kitchen to heat it again for the meal.
In the library, Henry gathered the sheets of his writing together, tore them across, as he had done so many times already, and carrying them to the fire, dropped the pieces into the flames one by one. When the whole surface of the fire was darkened by twisted brittle screws of burned paper, he took the poker and beat them into dust, and threw on another log and waited for new golden flames to spring out of it. Then he went back to his desk, drew out a fresh sheet of paper, and began to write.
THE END
Copyright
First published in 1959 by Hodder & Stoughton
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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ISBN 978-1-4472-2141-8 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-2140-1 POD
Copyright © Josephine Bell, 1959
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Josephine Bell, The House Above the River
