Read Online The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier - Free Book Online Page B

rapidity, followed by Mademoiselle Blanche, while the mother, clasping her hands likewise, bowed her massive head upon her chest. I knelt also, shielding my eyes with my hands, and the two fox-terriers came sniffing and pawing at my pockets. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw that the servant who had brought me to the room was also kneeling, eyes fast shut, echoing in sing-song fashion the responses to the curé’s prayers. He came to the end of his intercession, and, lifting his hands, made the sign of the Cross upon us all and scrambled to his feet.
    ‘Bonsoir
, Madame la Comtesse,
bonsoir
, Monsieur le Comte,
bonsoir
, Mademoiselle Blanche,
bonsoir
, Charlotte,’ he said, bowing and nodding in turn, his pink face wreathed in smiles. There was a little commotion by the door as he and the daughter of the house each held back for the other, neither yielding in courtesy, until finally the curé passed first, closely followed by Mademoiselle Blanche, head bent low like an acolyte.
    The servant Charlotte began mixing something from a bottle in the corner of the room, and as she came towards us with a medicine glass she said, ‘Monsieur le Comte will have a tray up here as well?’
    ‘Naturally, idiot,’ said the comtesse, ‘and I’m not going to take any of that stuff. Throw it away. Go and fetch the trays. Get out!’ Impatiently she gestured with her hand to the door, the flesh on her face puckering to annoyance. ‘Come here, come close,’ she said, beckoning me to sit beside her, while the two fox-terriers leapt upon her lap and settled there. ‘Well now, did you do it, did you settle with Carvalet?’
    It was the first direct question put to me since I had come to the château which I could not evade with some jest or careless remark.
    I swallowed. ‘Did I do what?’ I asked.
    ‘Renew the contract,’ she said.
    Jean de Gué had gone to Paris, then, on business. I remembered there had been envelopes and folders in the writing-case in the valise. His friend outside the station had suggested the visit was wasted. The matter was evidently important, and the expression in her eyes brought back to me once again those words of Jean de Gué about human greed. ‘Minister to it … give people what they want …’ This being his creed, doubtless he would satisfy his mother now. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her, ‘everything is arranged.’
    ‘Ah!’ She gave a little grunt of satisfaction. ‘You actually came to terms with them after all?’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘Paul is such a fool,’ she said, relaxing in her chair, ‘always grumbling, always looking upon the worst. Anyone would think we were completely ruined from the way he talks, and obliged to close down tomorrow. You have seen him already?’
    ‘He was just going out,’ I said, ‘when I arrived home.’
    ‘But you told him your news?’
    ‘No. No, there wasn’t time.’
    ‘I should have thought he would have waited long enough to hear that at least,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with you? You look ill.’
    ‘I drank too much in Le Mans.’
    ‘In Le Mans? Why drink in Le Mans? Couldn’t you have stayed in Paris if you wanted to celebrate?’
    ‘I did the same in Paris.’
    ‘Ah …!’ This time the exclamation was not a grunt, but a sigh of sympathy. ‘Poor boy,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult for you, isn’t it? You should have stayed longer for your fun. Come, kiss me again.’ She pulled me to her, and once more I was buried in the massive folds of her flesh. ‘You amused yourself well, I hope,’ she murmured. ‘Did you, did you?’
    The insinuation in her voice was unmistakable. Instead of being repelled I found myself amused, intrigued even, that this great creature, with her monstrous likeness to myself, who had just been praying with the curé, should wish to share the secrets of her son.
    ‘Naturally I amused myself, Maman,’ I said, realizing, as I drew away from her, that I had called her maman without effort.