Free The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier Page B

possibilities?’
    ‘She was shocked, wasn’t she?’ I asked.
    ‘Shocked? You mean delighted. You watch – she’ll work on the idea. If Marie-Noel seeing visions could bring some reflected glory to herself and to St Gilles, no one would be better pleased than Blanche. She’d have something to live for. Charlotte, are you there? Take this away, I’ve had enough. And give Monsieur Jean his wine. Why don’t you tell me more about Paris? You have told me nothing yet.’
    I searched my imagination. I had not been to Paris during my past holiday, and what I knew and loved of it was too full of museums and historical buildings for her ear. I talked of eating, which she understood, and the expense, which pleased her even better, and with sudden inspiration invented visits to the theatre, a meeting with war-time friends – she even supplied their names for me, which helped. By the time we had finished eating – and we had eaten well – and the trays had beenremoved, I felt more at my ease with her than I had ever done with anyone in my life. The reason for this was simple: there was no reserve on her part. She accepted me, believed me, loved me, trusted me; I held a position that had never been mine before. Had she encountered me as a stranger we should have had nothing to say to one another. As her son I risked no disapproval in anything I said. I laughed, I joked, I chatted, and the unaccustomed ease was a delight to me – until suddenly, when Charlotte had left the room, and she said to me, ‘Jean, you didn’t really forget my little present, did you? You were joking.’
    Once again the sagging mouth, the pleading eyes. The change in her was startling. Gone was the wicked humour, the twinkle in the eye, the rollicking impression of warmth and savagery combined. She had changed into a pitiable, trembling creature, hands clawing at mine. I did not know what to do or what to say. I rose and went to the door and called, ‘Charlotte, are you there?’ The terriers, wakened by my voice, jumped from her knee to the ground and barked furiously.
    Charlotte came quickly from some room nearby, and I said, ‘Madame le Comtesse is unwell. You had better go to her.’ She looked at me and asked, ‘Haven’t you brought it?’ ‘Brought what?’ I asked, and the woman stared at me, eyes narrowing. ‘You know, Monsieur le Comte, what you promised to bring from Paris.’
    I tried to think of the contents of the valise, and remembered the packages that looked like presents. What they were I did not know, nor where the things had been unpacked.
    Charlotte said to me swiftly, ‘Go and find it at once, Monsieur le Comte. She will suffer if you don’t.’
    I went down the corridor and the first flight of stairs, and then hesitated again, not knowing which way to turn. I heard bath water running from some room to the left of the first-floor corridor, and I went along it, uncertain, until I saw a half-open door next to the one which must be a bathroom. I pausedin the doorway, but there was someone moving inside it, so I went on again past the bathroom to the room beyond. The door was wide open and the room empty. I threw a quick glance round it, and to my relief I had struck lucky. It was a small dressing-room, and I recognized the brushes on the table and a dressing-gown thrown over one of the chairs. Someone had unpacked for me and the two valises had been removed, but there on the table were the packages I had seen in one of the valises, neatly piled alongside each other like presents on a Christmas tree. I remembered how there had been notes thrust through the string of each one, which had conveyed nothing when I looked at them in the hotel room, but now they made sense, with F, and R, and B, and P, and M-N, and, thank God, here was one addressed to ‘Maman’, with no fancy wrapping but in strong brown paper, sealed. I took it and went out of the room, and up the stairs again.
    Charlotte was waiting for me at the head of the