Excerpts from some of my so-far unfinished work
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Doux Deux Tours - a novel
Chapter 2
July 1866
“What are you doing?” A boyish voice exploded the sunny silence of the afternoon.
Blast! Disturbed by the sudden noise, the tantalising trout which had been threatening his hook for ten minutes flashed back into the shadows of the rocks. The young fisherman turned angrily to look up at the source of the sound. At twelve years old, he had enough maturity not to direct his anger at an unseen enemy of unknown strength. He paused and inspected the figure towering above him on the high bank. What he saw was a boy of about his own age, but smaller and thinner. A face whitened by illness or by too long poring over books peeped timidly out above the collar of a frilly blouse. Here was a boy he could insult with impunity.
“You bloody idiot! How could anyone be so stupid? You’ve frightened him off!”
The other boy shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Gosh! I’m dreadfully sorry. I didn’t realise.”
The boy beside the river glared. He could punch that offending nose with no danger of recrimination. Knowing that he could, it gave him infinitely more pleasure not to. There was more fun in staring him out. The other boy looked down at his feet and shuffled again.
“What’s your name, anyway, you half-wit?”
“Maurice de Troyes.”
“I’m Bernard Sannier! Come on down here!”
Maurice de Troyes’ pale face grew paler. Bernard Sannier smiled to himself.
“Come on! I won’t hurt you.”
Maurice struggled down the steep banking, carefully placing his feet on every outcrop that offered a foothold. His spindly arms waved frantically as he struggled to stay upright. Eventually, he jumped onto the flat river edge, relieved to have escaped both injury and torn clothing. Bernard took advantage of having him so close to launch another verbal attack.
“Why did you scare away my trout? Don’t you know anything about fishing?”
“No, I don’t. I know Latin and English and all the major works of Shakespeare, but I know nothing about fishing.”
Bernard sneered.
“I know Latin and English and all the major works of Shakespeare, and I know how to fish.”
It was Maurice’s turn to be sceptical. This stocky boy with his sun brown face and arms, the rough cloth of his shirt, his dirty horse-hair trousers, was nothing but a peasant. He might know how to fish, but as for the rest of his claims, why, he was probably illiterate.
“Where did you learn English and Latin?”
“My father taught me.”
Maurice wanted to say ‘I don’t believe you’, but he didn’t dare. Still, he couldn’t let such a ridiculous claim go unchallenged.
“What’s your father? The blacksmith?”
“That’s my grandfather. My father’s the priest.”
This was too much for Maurice. Let this other boy punch him if he wanted.
“Come on! Priests don’t have children.”
“O.K. He’s not my real father. But my mother’s his housekeeper, and we live in the same house, and he teaches me Latin and sometimes English.”
“And Shakespeare?”
“I read a lot. He has a big library.”
“What’s your favourite Shakespeare play?” Maurice was still testing.
“Macbeth”
“Really? Mine too.”
The two boys eyed each other up for a few moments.
“I could teach you to fish, if you like,” Bernard offered, finally.
“Oh, would you? But what can I teach you? You know everything.”
“Well, to be honest, my English isn’t that good.”
Maurice paused awkwardly.
“Neither is mine,” he admitted.
Both of them laughed. It was the first laugh of a friendship that was to last the rest of their lives.
Madame Hortense de Troyes was an aristocrat, an artist and a mother, in that order. As an artist, she had persuaded her husband to rent a suitably comfortable villa near Marseilles, so that she might benefit from the tranquillity and the light to develop her limited talent for watercolour landscapes and her unlimited passion for the young artist who was making a pretence of teaching her. . As a mother, she suffered her sickly thirteen-year-old son to accompany her, so that he might benefit from the therapeutic effects of sun and heat. But while she noted with satisfaction that her son had acquired a robust colouring, the aristocrat within her made her wary of the friend with whom he was spending so much healthy out-of-doors time. Learning that the boy was part of the local priest’s household, she sent an invitation to the prelate to present himself at the villa in order to hear her confession.
Her confession didn’t take long. Madame Hortense de Troyes believed in the sacraments in a totally symbolic fashion. Absolution from one sin was absolution from all. No point in disclosing everything to this village priest, who in spite of his Latin was really no more than a peasant. She offered him some of her minor sins of thought, keeping those sins of deed which might scandalise the lower orders to herself. Besides, her confession was not the real reason for his visit.
“Father Fabré, there is some information that I must have, and I believe you are in a position to provide it.”
The priest, as much a businessman as a saver of souls, always took pains to preserve the goodwill of the rich.
“You only have to ask, Madame,” he whimpered.
“My son seems to have struck up a friendship with the son of your housekeeper.”
“Bernard?”
“I believe that is the boy’s name. I wish to know something of his background and personality. What happened to his father, for example?”
“His father is dead, I’m afraid. It’s a tragic story. He was, I’m sorry to have to tell you, Madame, a peasant who was also a rebel and a republican.” Madame Hortense de Troyes shivered at the mention of this last word. “His marriage to Eugenie was most unsatisfactory, most unsatisfactory. He would spend a few days only with her, then disappear for months to participate in some uprising or disturbance. Eugenie last saw him six months before Bernard was born. There were reports of his death in a revolt in Aix three months later. It appears that the boy was born fatherless.”
“So, out of pity, you took her and her son into your household?”
“Not immediately. Eugenie refused to accept the news of her husband’s death. She lived on in her father’s house and waited for his return. But after three years, her parents were no longer prepared to feed and clothe an adult daughter and a growing grandson. They were not bad people, Madame, but he was a poor blacksmith as successful at fathering children as he was at shoeing horses. They had eleven other children. Through a relative they heard I was in need of a housekeeper, and it was arranged that they would be sent to me.”
“Tell me, does the boy’s mother share her late husband’s political views?”
“Quite the contrary, Madame. She can never forgive the republicans for her husband’s death, and has become a staunch royalist. As are all of us in my household, including young Bernard.”
“I’m glad to hear it. The de Troyes are a rich and noble family. We have extensive property and vineyards in Champagne, and business interest in Paris. I could not tolerate having my son exposed to seditionary ideas.”
“You have nothing to fear on that score, Madame. Young Bernard is a quick and intelligent boy, and , through myself, is aware of the troubled path our nation has been following. You know, of course, the church’s position in these matters, and you can be sure that Bernard is a faithful supporter of this position.”
“I understand the boy is particularly well educated and well read?”
“He attends the church school regularly. And in the afternoon’s I teach him as best as I can the rudiments of Latin and the little English I know. He has a satisfying thirst for knowledge, and studies diligently. We have hopes of him following a career in the church. He reads avidly too, from my extensive library, which, of course, contains only those books which may be safely read by a young person who wishes to follow the path of righteousness, both spiritual and political.”
“Excellent. This is exactly what I wish to hear. The friendship is to be encouraged. I will invite the boy to dine from time to time with Maurice, in the kitchen of course. This will not upset your family arrangements.”
Thinking of the vineyards in Champagne and the business interests in Paris, the priest fawned.
“Not at all, Madame! You are too kind.”
“Your information has been most useful, and you will find me most grateful. You may leave!”
The priest left, his mind preoccupied in settling on an appropriate enhancement to his church which might be furnished by a grateful lady of a noble family with vineyards in Champagne and business interests in Paris. Madame Hortense de Troyes was satisfied too. Having secured a suitable companion to divert her son, she could devote her summer wholeheartedly to her painting and her painter.
One of the things which most amazed Maurice about Bernard was his popularity. Everyone loved him. Adults would greet him warmly as he passed by. When they played soldiers, children wanted to be in his army, even when it was the German army. And Bernard’s friend was their friend. Maurice might have been a spindly little weakling in weird clothes with a strange way of talking, but if he was sponsored by Bernard he was O.K. The village children took him in, and soon forgot his Parisian accent and his fussy blouses and shorts.
Maurice was in total awe of his new friend. But then, so were the other children. Bernard knew when to smile and when to frown, when to be calm and when to be angry. It was Bernard who suggested most of their activities. And if someone else made a suggestion, the others looked to him for approval. Maurice wished he could be like him.
One day, one of the boys, maybe a couple of years older than the rest of the group, forgot himself.
“Why do we always do what you say?” he asked. “Can’t we do something we want to do?”
Bernard pushed back his black hair and smiled. His white teeth sparkled in his brown face.
“What is it you want to do, Pierre?”
Pierre’s eyes flashed. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. He just knew he didn’t want to do whatever it was Bernard wanted. He was the oldest, why should Bernard always be the boss?
“Why do we all have to listen to you? Just because your mother’s the priest’s whore.”
Pierre was only repeating a rumour he had often heard from adults. For the women of the village, the mysticism of communion, the authority of the cassock, and the mysteries of the gospels had been jumbled up with their awaking adolescent sensuality. Middle-aged spinsters rejected by men and frustrated housewives disappointed in their husbands regarded their priest with reverent respect and with suppressed desire. They looked on his pretty housekeeper, hating her and wishing they were in her place at the same time. They let their imagination run riot and propagated their fantasies as fact. And so the village gossiped about the relationship between priest and housekeeper. They condemned it in public. But, in the privacy of their own minds, the men wished they were the priest and the women dreamed of being the housekeeper.
The children had all turned to look at Bernard. They too had heard the rumours. From time to time, they would interrogate Bernard, but he was resolute and convincing. The priest and his mother were above reproach. Their parents were living out their own unfulfilled desires in their stupid stories. Father Fabré was a true man of God, pure in deed and spirit. The children were always convinced. They wondered how he was going to deal with Pierre.
“I wonder if perhaps you’re getting a bit too old to play with us any more, Pierre!”
Pierre looked at his feet, conscious of the crowd looking at him. He didn’t want to be an outcast. He wanted to apologise, he needed to apologise, but how?
“I suppose you didn’t mean it,” Bernard suggested.
‘I’m sorry Bernard. I was being stupid.”
“Let’s go down to the river.”
They walked through the fields, Bernard a little apart, immersed in his own thoughts. Maurice supposed he was thinking about how he had handled Pierre. He wasn’t. He was thinking of the bedroom he shared with his mother, of that other bed beside his own, the other bed that lay every night unused. And he was smiling.
Doux Deux Tours - a novel
Chapter 2
July 1866
“What are you doing?” A boyish voice exploded the sunny silence of the afternoon.
Blast! Disturbed by the sudden noise, the tantalising trout which had been threatening his hook for ten minutes flashed back into the shadows of the rocks. The young fisherman turned angrily to look up at the source of the sound. At twelve years old, he had enough maturity not to direct his anger at an unseen enemy of unknown strength. He paused and inspected the figure towering above him on the high bank. What he saw was a boy of about his own age, but smaller and thinner. A face whitened by illness or by too long poring over books peeped timidly out above the collar of a frilly blouse. Here was a boy he could insult with impunity.
“You bloody idiot! How could anyone be so stupid? You’ve frightened him off!”
The other boy shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Gosh! I’m dreadfully sorry. I didn’t realise.”
The boy beside the river glared. He could punch that offending nose with no danger of recrimination. Knowing that he could, it gave him infinitely more pleasure not to. There was more fun in staring him out. The other boy looked down at his feet and shuffled again.
“What’s your name, anyway, you half-wit?”
“Maurice de Troyes.”
“I’m Bernard Sannier! Come on down here!”
Maurice de Troyes’ pale face grew paler. Bernard Sannier smiled to himself.
“Come on! I won’t hurt you.”
Maurice struggled down the steep banking, carefully placing his feet on every outcrop that offered a foothold. His spindly arms waved frantically as he struggled to stay upright. Eventually, he jumped onto the flat river edge, relieved to have escaped both injury and torn clothing. Bernard took advantage of having him so close to launch another verbal attack.
“Why did you scare away my trout? Don’t you know anything about fishing?”
“No, I don’t. I know Latin and English and all the major works of Shakespeare, but I know nothing about fishing.”
Bernard sneered.
“I know Latin and English and all the major works of Shakespeare, and I know how to fish.”
It was Maurice’s turn to be sceptical. This stocky boy with his sun brown face and arms, the rough cloth of his shirt, his dirty horse-hair trousers, was nothing but a peasant. He might know how to fish, but as for the rest of his claims, why, he was probably illiterate.
“Where did you learn English and Latin?”
“My father taught me.”
Maurice wanted to say ‘I don’t believe you’, but he didn’t dare. Still, he couldn’t let such a ridiculous claim go unchallenged.
“What’s your father? The blacksmith?”
“That’s my grandfather. My father’s the priest.”
This was too much for Maurice. Let this other boy punch him if he wanted.
“Come on! Priests don’t have children.”
“O.K. He’s not my real father. But my mother’s his housekeeper, and we live in the same house, and he teaches me Latin and sometimes English.”
“And Shakespeare?”
“I read a lot. He has a big library.”
“What’s your favourite Shakespeare play?” Maurice was still testing.
“Macbeth”
“Really? Mine too.”
The two boys eyed each other up for a few moments.
“I could teach you to fish, if you like,” Bernard offered, finally.
“Oh, would you? But what can I teach you? You know everything.”
“Well, to be honest, my English isn’t that good.”
Maurice paused awkwardly.
“Neither is mine,” he admitted.
Both of them laughed. It was the first laugh of a friendship that was to last the rest of their lives.
Madame Hortense de Troyes was an aristocrat, an artist and a mother, in that order. As an artist, she had persuaded her husband to rent a suitably comfortable villa near Marseilles, so that she might benefit from the tranquillity and the light to develop her limited talent for watercolour landscapes and her unlimited passion for the young artist who was making a pretence of teaching her. . As a mother, she suffered her sickly thirteen-year-old son to accompany her, so that he might benefit from the therapeutic effects of sun and heat. But while she noted with satisfaction that her son had acquired a robust colouring, the aristocrat within her made her wary of the friend with whom he was spending so much healthy out-of-doors time. Learning that the boy was part of the local priest’s household, she sent an invitation to the prelate to present himself at the villa in order to hear her confession.
Her confession didn’t take long. Madame Hortense de Troyes believed in the sacraments in a totally symbolic fashion. Absolution from one sin was absolution from all. No point in disclosing everything to this village priest, who in spite of his Latin was really no more than a peasant. She offered him some of her minor sins of thought, keeping those sins of deed which might scandalise the lower orders to herself. Besides, her confession was not the real reason for his visit.
“Father Fabré, there is some information that I must have, and I believe you are in a position to provide it.”
The priest, as much a businessman as a saver of souls, always took pains to preserve the goodwill of the rich.
“You only have to ask, Madame,” he whimpered.
“My son seems to have struck up a friendship with the son of your housekeeper.”
“Bernard?”
“I believe that is the boy’s name. I wish to know something of his background and personality. What happened to his father, for example?”
“His father is dead, I’m afraid. It’s a tragic story. He was, I’m sorry to have to tell you, Madame, a peasant who was also a rebel and a republican.” Madame Hortense de Troyes shivered at the mention of this last word. “His marriage to Eugenie was most unsatisfactory, most unsatisfactory. He would spend a few days only with her, then disappear for months to participate in some uprising or disturbance. Eugenie last saw him six months before Bernard was born. There were reports of his death in a revolt in Aix three months later. It appears that the boy was born fatherless.”
“So, out of pity, you took her and her son into your household?”
“Not immediately. Eugenie refused to accept the news of her husband’s death. She lived on in her father’s house and waited for his return. But after three years, her parents were no longer prepared to feed and clothe an adult daughter and a growing grandson. They were not bad people, Madame, but he was a poor blacksmith as successful at fathering children as he was at shoeing horses. They had eleven other children. Through a relative they heard I was in need of a housekeeper, and it was arranged that they would be sent to me.”
“Tell me, does the boy’s mother share her late husband’s political views?”
“Quite the contrary, Madame. She can never forgive the republicans for her husband’s death, and has become a staunch royalist. As are all of us in my household, including young Bernard.”
“I’m glad to hear it. The de Troyes are a rich and noble family. We have extensive property and vineyards in Champagne, and business interest in Paris. I could not tolerate having my son exposed to seditionary ideas.”
“You have nothing to fear on that score, Madame. Young Bernard is a quick and intelligent boy, and , through myself, is aware of the troubled path our nation has been following. You know, of course, the church’s position in these matters, and you can be sure that Bernard is a faithful supporter of this position.”
“I understand the boy is particularly well educated and well read?”
“He attends the church school regularly. And in the afternoon’s I teach him as best as I can the rudiments of Latin and the little English I know. He has a satisfying thirst for knowledge, and studies diligently. We have hopes of him following a career in the church. He reads avidly too, from my extensive library, which, of course, contains only those books which may be safely read by a young person who wishes to follow the path of righteousness, both spiritual and political.”
“Excellent. This is exactly what I wish to hear. The friendship is to be encouraged. I will invite the boy to dine from time to time with Maurice, in the kitchen of course. This will not upset your family arrangements.”
Thinking of the vineyards in Champagne and the business interests in Paris, the priest fawned.
“Not at all, Madame! You are too kind.”
“Your information has been most useful, and you will find me most grateful. You may leave!”
The priest left, his mind preoccupied in settling on an appropriate enhancement to his church which might be furnished by a grateful lady of a noble family with vineyards in Champagne and business interests in Paris. Madame Hortense de Troyes was satisfied too. Having secured a suitable companion to divert her son, she could devote her summer wholeheartedly to her painting and her painter.
One of the things which most amazed Maurice about Bernard was his popularity. Everyone loved him. Adults would greet him warmly as he passed by. When they played soldiers, children wanted to be in his army, even when it was the German army. And Bernard’s friend was their friend. Maurice might have been a spindly little weakling in weird clothes with a strange way of talking, but if he was sponsored by Bernard he was O.K. The village children took him in, and soon forgot his Parisian accent and his fussy blouses and shorts.
Maurice was in total awe of his new friend. But then, so were the other children. Bernard knew when to smile and when to frown, when to be calm and when to be angry. It was Bernard who suggested most of their activities. And if someone else made a suggestion, the others looked to him for approval. Maurice wished he could be like him.
One day, one of the boys, maybe a couple of years older than the rest of the group, forgot himself.
“Why do we always do what you say?” he asked. “Can’t we do something we want to do?”
Bernard pushed back his black hair and smiled. His white teeth sparkled in his brown face.
“What is it you want to do, Pierre?”
Pierre’s eyes flashed. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. He just knew he didn’t want to do whatever it was Bernard wanted. He was the oldest, why should Bernard always be the boss?
“Why do we all have to listen to you? Just because your mother’s the priest’s whore.”
Pierre was only repeating a rumour he had often heard from adults. For the women of the village, the mysticism of communion, the authority of the cassock, and the mysteries of the gospels had been jumbled up with their awaking adolescent sensuality. Middle-aged spinsters rejected by men and frustrated housewives disappointed in their husbands regarded their priest with reverent respect and with suppressed desire. They looked on his pretty housekeeper, hating her and wishing they were in her place at the same time. They let their imagination run riot and propagated their fantasies as fact. And so the village gossiped about the relationship between priest and housekeeper. They condemned it in public. But, in the privacy of their own minds, the men wished they were the priest and the women dreamed of being the housekeeper.
The children had all turned to look at Bernard. They too had heard the rumours. From time to time, they would interrogate Bernard, but he was resolute and convincing. The priest and his mother were above reproach. Their parents were living out their own unfulfilled desires in their stupid stories. Father Fabré was a true man of God, pure in deed and spirit. The children were always convinced. They wondered how he was going to deal with Pierre.
“I wonder if perhaps you’re getting a bit too old to play with us any more, Pierre!”
Pierre looked at his feet, conscious of the crowd looking at him. He didn’t want to be an outcast. He wanted to apologise, he needed to apologise, but how?
“I suppose you didn’t mean it,” Bernard suggested.
‘I’m sorry Bernard. I was being stupid.”
“Let’s go down to the river.”
They walked through the fields, Bernard a little apart, immersed in his own thoughts. Maurice supposed he was thinking about how he had handled Pierre. He wasn’t. He was thinking of the bedroom he shared with his mother, of that other bed beside his own, the other bed that lay every night unused. And he was smiling.