The Baker's Blood Page 20

  ‘My dear Paulet, I’d find it hard to say anything!’

  Supporting herself on her white marble dressing table, she turned round with some difficulty, revealing a chubby face covered in fresh ceruse, to which the crimson had not yet given a touch of life.

  ‘Ah, there’s the other scoundrel! Show yourself, then, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time. Those damned informers of yours denounced me again. That bearer of stinking buckets who’s been patrolling Rue Saint-Honoré for days …’

  Her huge body was quivering with anger.

  ‘You get a poor girl pregnant, that’s a mere trifle to you. You throw her out on the streets with your seed inside her—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts, you’re going to hear what I have to say. The child is born and grows up. Remember him now, do you? When by chance you find him again, you chase out his mother and send her into exile, and then imprison the child in a monastery! What do you think he finds there? Insults, kicks, thrashings. He decides to run away and finds himself penniless on the road to Paris, forced to beg in order to survive. He’s picked up, warmed and fed while his good-for-nothing of a father spends his time nonchalantly riding back and forth. What do you say to that? I, whom he calls his aunt, I tell it as I see it. I await the few bad reasons you’re going to give me.’

  Whatever the passion and the insulting nature of La Paulet’s words, Nicolas felt a wave of happiness overwhelm him. Louis was here, alive, safe and free. He had to hold back his sobs.

  ‘You’re putting words in my mouth, Madame, but I’m prepared to forget that out of consideration for the woman who took my son in. The rest is more complicated than anything your anger could conceive. With that, go and fetch Louis and leave us alone. I will see you afterwards.’

  Submissively, she rose with difficulty and went out dragging her feet and muttering indistinctly. It struck Nicolas that she seemed as ill informed as he about the circumstances of Louis’s departure from his school. A moment later, Louis entered, with a stubborn look on his face and his eyes lowered. He seemed frozen in an attitude of defensive hostility. This was a long way from the hoped-for joy of their reunion.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you, Louis. Now I’m waiting to hear what you have to say.’

  He had expressed himself as affectionately as possible, but his words were met with silence. He would therefore take things in hand.

  ‘You say nothing. In that case, I’ll tell you what I really think. Whatever wrongs you believe I have done you, I am not to blame. Only your mother’s discretion and honour are the cause. She left it all too late to reveal your existence to me. In these circumstances, I ask for respect and total honesty from you. Open your heart to me and explain your strange disappearance, which I cannot help but think must have been caused by some unusual occurrence. Otherwise, I will be forced to conclude that you behaved in some dishonourable manner, which I find hard to believe of a Ranreuil.’

  ‘You do not know me well, Father, if you can think that. I must tell you that I am not satisfied with your conduct towards me and I consider …’

  What was the reason for this arrogant, self-satisfied tone? Bitter memories came back to Nicolas, memories of his confrontation with his own father at the Château de Ranreuil. Cautious and patient as he usually was, he felt anger rising within him, and only just managed to contain it in time.

  ‘Louis, you forget yourself. Your words are hurtful to me. Please explain yourself without these pointless recriminations. Then we will weigh all this in the balance of our own consciences.’

  Louis, who had been breathing hard, now appeared to calm down. He swallowed. ‘All right,’ he began, hesitantly. ‘Things went too far. I was insulted, humiliated, called the son of a—’

  ‘Be quiet! And never let your mother be insulted.’

  ‘How do you know they were talking about my mother?’

  ‘Because being a foundling myself, I know the kinds of things that can be said in a school.’

  The past was returning, painful and bitter.

  ‘It was indeed my mother who was called a—’

  Nicolas stepped forward and put his hand over his son’s mouth. To his surprise, he found that Louis’s face was burning hot. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I caught a chill on the roads.’ He was less tense now. ‘I couldn’t stand it. There was a fight, a kind of duel.’

  ‘With compasses. I know.’

  ‘We were separated. I was put in solitary confinement. I had been languishing there for several days when your message arrived, brought by a Capuchin monk.’

  Nicolas was aching to speak, but decided not to interrupt him.

  ‘He told me you were angry about what had happened and were ordering me to leave the school immediately and join my mother in London. He said you never wanted to see me again.’

  ‘How could you have believed something like that?’

  ‘It was your handwriting, and the envelope bore our seal. How could I have doubted it? Anyway, here is the letter. See for yourself.’

  Nicolas took it and was astonished by the accuracy of the forgery. ‘And did you really think I was capable of abandoning you like that?’

  ‘No, never … but at the time, yes … I felt desperate.’

  ‘Why was I told you’d run away?’

  ‘The monk – who I see clearly now wasn’t sent by you – told me I was to make it look as if I’d run away and then meet him at a crossroads. When I got there, there was no sign of him. I didn’t know how to get to a port and sail for England. I came back to Paris in wagons. Given the circumstances, I couldn’t just show my face in Rue Montmartre. My one recourse was the Dauphin Couronné, where my aunt took me in.’

  ‘Your aunt?’

  ‘La Paulet. I always called her my aunt when I was a child.’

  He began sobbing. Nicolas opened his arms, and Louis threw himself into them. They embraced for a long time.

  ‘What you need to know,’ Nicolas said, ‘is that the affairs I am dealing with and the powerful interests concerned lead me to believe that someone was using you to get at me.’

  ‘I can understand that. Father, I don’t want to go back to Juilly.’

  ‘Of course not. In any case, I have other plans for you. But I have no desire to impose them on you without knowing where your own wishes lie.’

  ‘I want to serve the King as a soldier.’

  ‘Then my plans are very similar to yours. We will talk further about this. Now go and get ready. I’m taking you back to Rue Montmartre, where, at the very least, a fatted calf will be killed in your honour! Thank your … aunt for her solicitude and tell her I should like to speak with her about another matter.’

  Louis left the room with a light step, turning at the door to throw a last, radiant look at his father. La Paulet returned, again dragging her feet. Nicolas remained silent.

  ‘I’m for it now,’ she said. ‘You’re going to tell me off, I can feel it. You’d be right. I prattled away without understanding. The boy enlightened me. This all puts me at a disadvantage with you, although …’

  ‘Although?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have sent La Satin to London. I miss her, and I miss the way she ran my house, which was doing so well in her time.’

  He did not know which of these regrets was uppermost in La Paulet’s heart. No doubt both.

  ‘How sensitive you are!’ he said. ‘It was she, and she alone, who made that decision. There is one thing I regret, which I’ll admit to you: the fact that I reacted so harshly when I saw her keeping shop in the lower gallery of the palace. You have to realise, it’s a place where I have official duties to carry out. That’s all, although it’s already a lot. But let’s forget all that, I have a favour to ask of you.’

  He remembered the sad look La Satin had given him and his heart contracted with pity. La Paulet was smiling, though: they were getting back on their old footing. She collapsed into a bergère, which creaked and groaned beneath her weight, and, sup
porting her many chins with a swollen hand, she waited, her eyes half closed.

  ‘My good old Paulet …’

  ‘Don’t try to convince me with soft words, I know your ways!’

  ‘The way you’ve treated Louis has strengthened our old bond.’

  ‘More rope to hang yourself with!’ she grunted. ‘I see what you’re after. Very well, let’s make peace. You’ll have your ratafia. I have a new shipment.’

  She got to her feet and opened an elegant rosewood sideboard, took out two engraved glasses, and filled them with an amber liquid. She knocked back the first in one go, clicked her tongue appreciatively, filled it again and held out the other to Nicolas. He was impressed by the fact that she had glasses with gold borders on a background of black varnish, of the kind that the gilder and framer Glomy had made fashionable under the late King.

  ‘Still the same supplier?’

  ‘The son now,’ she replied, staring dreamily into space.

  Nicolas took a sip: it was soft yet fiery to the taste.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You won’t find better than this! I have to like you, Nicolas. God, we’ve been rubbing along together for quite a time now … And now here we are, back to our old selves.’

  ‘Yes, here we are again, just like before. What can you tell me about La Gourdan?’

  She grimaced, and her little eyes, set deep in her fat face, narrowed until they were invisible. ‘Now there’s a policeman’s question! As if you didn’t know her!’

  ‘It’s not about what I know. I’d like to hear what you think of her.’

  ‘The woman has no morals.’

  The word struck Nicolas as strange, coming from La Paulet. His reaction did not escape her.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking,’ she said, looking straight at him. ‘The truth of the matter is, there are limits I’ll never cross. I’ve never made any girl work for me against her will, nor bought a virgin from her family, as others do.’ She shook her head knowingly.

  ‘Whereas La Gourdan—’

  ‘The bitch! Not content with having younger and younger girls in her seraglio, girls who’ve been sold into prostitution by their parents, she’s involved in all sorts of other dubious business.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘La Gourdan’s a usurer. She buys up a whole lot of fabrics, muslin, silk from Tours, taffeta, silk stockings.’

  ‘Where’s the usury in that?’ asked Nicolas, who could feel the ratafia warming his cheeks.

  ‘When you know that the person who’s selling all this stuff is in a hurry to have cash, you’ll realise that La Gourdan gets the merchandise at a hundred per cent loss for the seller.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Want more, do you? I’ll give you more! She corrupts women married to shrivelled-up old men, finding vigorous young stallions to satisfy their appetites. She receives clandestine couples. Her speciality is fleecing the English, who’ve been coming over in droves since the peace treaty. When she gets hold of a pretty girl, she plays the stern chaperone, the attentive governess, and shows her off, all prim and proper, in the Tuileries. All this to attract customers, who are willing to pay good money for someone they think’s a poor orphan. God, the number she’s fleeced!’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She works hand in glove with the directors of pleasure gardens and places like that: the Vauxhall, the Saint-Germain fair, the Chinese redoubt. They give complimentary tickets to her girls in order to attract all and sundry to their shows and festivals. What can an honest house do to compete with that?’

  She was becoming increasingly heated in her denunciation of her rival. She moved her bergère closer to Nicolas until they were almost touching and leant forward, mysteriously.

  ‘And there’s something else I’m sure you don’t know.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I’ve been in this business a long time! Do you think there’s anything I don’t know?’ She raised her voice. ‘A girl I trained who’s with her now tells me everything that goes on there. La Gourdan is also involved in political intrigues. Now that’s something you should never do. We’re tolerated by the Lieutenant General. One foot wrong, as you know, and we’re all in a mess. This has been going on for a long time. It all started in Rue Sainte-Anne and is still going on in her new place in Rue des Deux-Ponts-Saint-Sauveur. Her house is a centre for meetings—’

  ‘Of an amorous nature?’

  ‘Not at all, imbecile. Merchants, financiers, the kind of people everyone’s talking about these days, who deal in grain and flour. You see what I mean? The kind of upstarts who are controlling the market with their monopoly. Well, the last meeting took place three or four days ago, at night. And they weren’t there for an orgy.’

  ‘Do you know what they talk about at their meetings?’

  ‘My God, don’t you understand anything? Their business, of course. La Gourdan’s house is full of secrets. They enter it without being seen, through the door reserved for dissolute priests. It’s connected to the house next door, which is occupied by a picture dealer. Anyone can go in there without causing a scandal. He’s in league with the lady in question. There’s a passage at the back of a wardrobe which leads to her place.’

  ‘This is quite an intriguing picture you’re painting.’

  ‘One last piece of advice. Ask Inspector Marais, who keeps the register of brothels. Now there’s someone who knows a lot!’

  And with this parting shot, they bade one another farewell, fully reconciled. Nicolas found Louis waiting for him with a package in his hand.

  ‘I brought with me the books I was given by Monsieur de Noblecourt.’

  ‘You could have sold them to provide for your needs.’

  ‘My books! Monsieur de Noblecourt’s books! Do you really think I could have done that, Father?’

  ‘Of course not, I was joking. I know you’re well aware of how much respect you owe him, and how fond he is of you.’

  They were no sooner out in the street than they were approached by a strange figure. Nicolas recognised Tirepot, with his oilcloth and his buckets. With his back to the light, he looked like some fantastic bat.

  ‘Nice to see you, countryman,’ said Tirepot. ‘Knowing you were here, the others decamped. There’ve been protests in various districts. This morning, bread was fourteen sols for four pounds.’

  ‘Can you tell me why they were all here, around the Dauphin Couronné?’

  ‘Why, to protect your son here! He’s been here for several days, with the old lady. Bourdeau’s orders.’

  So the inspector had known, and so had Noblecourt. They had presumably wanted him to settle matters with Louis himself, while at the same time ensuring that nothing happened to him.

  ‘Tell them there’ll be a bonus,’ he said, slipping Tirepot a double louis.

  ‘As generous as ever.’

  ‘It seems to me your buckets are empty.’

  ‘Oh, yes! I’ve given up the profession, there are no more customers.’ He began singing, waddling like a performing bear as he did so.

  ‘With this long cloak, I wandered here and there,

  Carrying two buckets for people to shit in.

  But these days people shit everywhere,

  So I’m out on my ears, without a pot to spit in!’

  ‘But you still have all your gear with you!’

  ‘I’ve always been on good terms with the spies, out of friendship for you. So now I’ve joined them full time, and the buckets are a good excuse for me to be wherever I want to be.’

  ‘I may have need of you. Where can you be found?’

  ‘Bourdeau and Rabouine know where.’

  In the cab taking them back to Rue Montmartre, Louis expressed surprise that everyone spoke to his father in such a familiar manner. Nicolas explained how sensitive an honest man should be: you had to be in tune with those who talked to you, especially when they expressed, as best they could, their friendship for you. Wh
en they reached their destination, he dropped Louis, knowing that everyone was waiting for him expectantly as the child of the house. At the corner of the church of Saint-Eustache, he asked the coachman to stop the carriage, having spotted Bourdeau striding up and down. He opened the door and the inspector hoisted himself inside. The coachman was asked to wait.

  ‘I was afraid I’d miss you.’

  Nicolas squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll never forget this, Pierre. I know what you did. Louis has returned to the fold. I understand everything. Your sensitivity touches me more than I can say, and my debt to you is greater then ever.’

  Bourdeau blushed and his eyes misted over. He quickly changed the subject. ‘I don’t know all the whys and wherefores, but alarming news continues to come in to the Châtelet. Threatening groups have entered Paris, led by people who seem to know what they’re doing. They’ve been seen at Porte de la Conférence, Porte Saint-Martin and in Vaugirard.’

  ‘Tirepot told me that at the Dauphin Couronné.’

  ‘It’s reported they were using an agreed vocabulary. In Vaugirard one of them asked a booted rider about their destination. The answer was “three points and thirty-one”, which was repeated among the group and then passed back along the rows. Apparently, everyone knew which direction to take. The largest group went straight to the corn market. They must have reached it by now.’

  ‘Are the local people following the crowd?’

  ‘They’re not actually taking part. Of course, some tag along out of curiosity and take advantage of the looted bread, but they’re not really involved in what’s going on. Most are closing their doors, opening their windows and looking out, as if watching the Corpus Christi procession pass by. Even most artisans, who might have been thought sympathetic to the movement, have remained calm.’

  ‘And the civil authorities?’

  ‘Complete disorder, uncertainty and incompetence! By an unfortunate coincidence, the garrison’s ceremony of blessing the flags was due to take place and the Maréchal de Biron has let it continue. He refused to give the counter-order requested by—’