The Soldier's Dark Secret

Madame Rosser got to her feet and pulled the gold cord which hung from the ceiling by the fireplace. ‘I trust I have answered all the questions you wished to ask? You will accept my condolences for the loss of your mother,’ she added coldly without giving them a chance to answer. ‘When my last bank draft was returned, I made enquiries and discovered she had died. Drowning, I think.’

‘Suicide,’ Celeste said calmly, getting to her feet. ‘Unlike you, Madame Rosser, it seems my mother had a conscience.’

‘I may not have a conscience, but I do have a sense of duty, Mademoiselle.’

‘You may rest assured that your duty is now done. I require nothing further from you. I thank you for your time, Madame, and I bid you good day.’ Celeste dropped a shallow curtsy.

‘The allowance, Mademoiselle, my nephew would have wished me to—’

‘You cannot buy my silence. I have adequate means of my own. Good day, Madame.’

Celeste walked from the room without looking back. As the door to the salon closed, Jack caught her arm. ‘You were magnificent,’ he said.

* * *

Jack, torn between fury at the callous treatment Madame Rosser had meted out and admiration at the way Celeste had dealt with it, bid the driver take them back to her studio post-haste. She shook her head when he tried to talk to her, and when he made to escort her through the courtyard door, she told him that she needed time to think, and asked him to call on her later in the evening.

* * *

When he arrived back at the apartment a few hours later, she looked relatively calm. ‘Go in,’ she said, ‘I will be only a moment.’

The door to her studio stood wide open. A huge room with tall windows opening out on to the roof, and even at this time of year and at this time in the evening, the impression of light. Canvases were stacked against the walls. There were three easels, a huge cupboard, a long trestle table and a number of crates which he supposed must contain her mother’s work.

The windows of her main living room also opened out on to the roof. Two large comfortable sofas faced each other across the hearth, draped in a multitude of coloured shawls and cushions. A small table contained a bottle of wine and two glasses. A larger table and chairs sat in front of one of the windows. A dresser stood against one wall, but the rest of the room was painted in the palest of green, the only decoration being the canvases on the walls.

Faces. Lots and lots of faces. Not a single landscape in sight. There were children playing on the banks of the Seine. There were studies of old women and washerwomen. There were men playing boules. Old men smoking pipes. An organ grinder. A soldier in a ragged uniform with only one leg. A woman in a café with a glass of what he presumed was absinthe.

‘They are not very good, but they are mine. Not that anyone would commission this kind of thing, even if I wanted them to.’

Celeste was wearing a long, flowing garment of scarlet silk embroidered with flowers, tied with a sash around her waist. ‘How are you?’ Jack asked. ‘After this afternoon, I’m surprised you’re still in one piece.’

‘I was not when I arrived back here, which is why I wanted you to come back later,’ she said ruefully. ‘I didn’t think I had any tears left to cry but I surprised myself once again.’

He smiled, because she wanted him too, but he was not convinced. ‘You handled it perfectly. I wanted to grab her by the throat, but you looked down your nose at her in exactly the way she looked down that nose of hers, and it was a much more effective put-down.’

‘For two whole minutes. That woman is impermeable. Like stone. Would you like a glass of wine?’

Without waiting for an answer, she poured them both a glass, setting them down on a small table by the fire. She sat down on the sofa, tucking her legs under her. Jack sat at the other end. She took a sip of wine. It reminded him of Madame Rosser, the way she sipped. Steadying herself. Bracing herself. For what? She seemed on edge. And no wonder, considering what she had just been through, Jack told himself. But she was watching him—oddly.

‘When I went for my walk on the calanques that morning in Cassis, I realised that you and Maman had a great deal in common,’ Celeste said.

‘I don’t see how—’

‘For example, there is your sense of duty,’ she interrupted. ‘My mother promised that horrible woman never to tell anyone the story of my origins. After the Revolution was over, there was no possible threat to her life or to mine, yet she said nothing. She was by then, as far as the world was concerned, a respectably married woman. She could have gone back to England, but she allowed that woman—presumably it was she, that scheming, Machiavellian salope who will not claim me for her grand-niece, I presume it was she who informed my mother’s parents that she was dead,’ Celeste said bitterly.