The Confectioner's Tale Part 22

May 1988 'It all makes sense, Professor, it has to be the explanation,' I tell Whyke as he moves along the counter with his tray.

He ignores me. 'Kaufmann phoned again this morning,' he says miserably. 'Told me she was going to report you to the faculty if she hasn't heard from you by the end of today. Thank you,' he directs at the cas.h.i.+er, absentmindedly patting his pockets. 'Sure I can't get you anything, Petra?'

Repressing a sigh of frustration, I order a cup of tea and join him at a table. He begins to eat his baked potato, tuna and beans with a resolute expression.

'Sugar?' he offers cheerlessly, pus.h.i.+ng it my way.

'No, thank you.'

'I thought you took two?'

He looks so hangdog that I don't have the heart to tell him I've never taken sugar in my tea and let him drop two lumps into the bottom of the cup.

He sits back and stares at a baked bean that has escaped onto the table.

'What are job opportunities like these days for an ex-don?' he mutters.

Seizing the plate, I shove it away, where it stops just short of falling to the floor. Finally, Whyke looks up.

'That's my lunch.'

'Professor, I need you to listen. Then you can go back to eating tuna and being defeatist.'

'Two things I'm very good at.' He gives me a hint of a smile. 'Please, go ahead.'

Swiftly, before his attention strays back to his abandoned lunch, I explain Alex's discovery from the previous night.

'So there was an affair,' Whyke says with interest. 'It would certainly be the most obvious material for a scandal, especially in the case of a cla.s.s divide. Such things were known to happen seduction, blackmail and the like.'

His words take me by surprise. 'What do you mean?'

'If your du Frere was a chef, then no doubt he was from a lower social cla.s.s than Mademoiselle Clermont. In which case, he could have seduced her in order to extort money from the family. A scandal suggests irreparable damage to her or her reputation, rather than an embarra.s.sing dalliance.'

I'm silent: part of me balks at the idea, even though I can see the sense in it.

'Well, we can't know for sure,' I point out somewhat stubbornly. 'All this is conjecture without that article.'

'But I asked them to send out a copy,' Whyke frowns. 'I telephoned the reprographics team directly. When I told them how important it was, they pulled some strings and rushed it through.'

'When was this?' I ask, stunned.

'Yesterday,' he reaches for his lunch once again, 'after I spoke to you. I'm not one hundred per cent sure that it will have arrived, but he did promise he'd try to get it in the last post.'

I don't hear the rest of the sentence, because I'm scrabbling for my bag, nearly knocking over the mug of tea in my haste to get out of the chair.

'Thank you, Professor,' I yell, already halfway out of the door. 'I'll call later!'

'Petra!' he calls. 'Your review is in three days!'

The journey back to college is a blur. I veer across junctions on my bike and pedal furiously past other students, all celebrating the end of exams. I dump my bike in the rack without bothering to lock it up and charge into the porters' lodge.

My pigeonhole is filled with the usual rubbish. I fling it all out onto the floor, earning a frightened look from a pa.s.sing first-year. There is nothing. No delivery slip announcing a registered letter, no unfamiliar envelopes. In desperation, I check the pigeonholes around mine, hoping it might have been placed in one of them by mistake. My excitement fades as quickly as it arrived. I scoop the papers from the ground and jam the fistful into the bin.

'Miss Stevenson?' a voice stops me. One of the porters is leaning out of the office, waving a flat, brown envelope in my direction. 'This arrived earlier, registered post for you.'

I grab it and start tearing open the paper.

'Something important?' he asks mildly.

It's the article.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

April 1910 'How did you get here?'

The question shattered the frosty silence.

'I hailed a taxi cab.'

Her voice was stiff; she no longer seemed so sure of herself. Gui realized that she must have walked past Madame's parlour in order to reach his room.

'Found her at the bottom of the road, Gui,' said Puce, 'near the Chapeau. Not wise to take a cab into Belleville at night, Mam'selle.'

'Thank you, Puce,' Jeanne said softly.

'I'll go.' Isabelle wrapped her gown tighter about herself. 'I believe that you and the mademoiselle have matters to discuss in private.'

'That would be welcome.' The coldness in Jeanne's voice was unmistakable, but Isabelle merely nodded, taking Puce with her.

As the door swung closed, Gui heard Isabelle promising to find Puce some sugared treats as a reward. They were alone. Jeanne's eyes were bright, fixed on the small stove. The coiled worm of anger in Gui's gut began to stir again when he saw that her engagement finger remained bare.

'You didn't need to be so rude,' he snapped, retreating to his place in front of the fire. 'Isabelle is a friend.'

'I know what she is.'

'What does that mean?'

Jeanne was silent, resolutely looking anywhere but at him.

'I said, what does that mean?' he pushed.

'For G.o.d's sake, Guillaume, she was barely dressed,' Jeanne burst. 'I knew you lived in Belleville, but I didn't think you shared a roof with ...'

'With who? Say it, Jeanne.'

'With prost.i.tutes and criminals and who knows what else!'

'Can you hear yourself?' Gui was on his feet again. For some reason, the sight of her fine clothes in that shabby room enraged him more than her betrayal. 'Isabelle is my friend, yet you treat her like she's nothing, like you're better. You're acting like one of them.'

'I am "one of them"!'

He turned away then, overcome by the hopelessness of it all.

'Are you engaged to that man?' he said.

'I came here to try to explain.' Her voice was taut with emotion. 'It was arranged such a long time ago, I never thought-'

'Are you engaged to him? Yes or no?'

'That is not what I am trying to tell you.'

'Answer the question.'

'Yes,' she broke, almost defiantly. 'At this moment, I am engaged to marry Leonard Burnett, and it seems that I might as well go through with it.' She fumbled with the door, wrenched it open. 'I am sorry to have disturbed you and your "friend".'

The door drifted closed, the sound of her rapid footsteps disappearing down the stairs. Let her go, a voice in his head told him. It sounded like Nicolas. Better that it should end here, for both of you.

Gui dragged the cork from the bottle and took a swig of the cheap liquor. It stung his nose and he coughed, trying to rid his throat of the burning sweetness. Nearby, in another attic room perhaps, a gramophone was playing, the melody warbling across the roof like a lost soul.

He saw what could have been. A place for them to be alone, truly alone, closed off by four, rickety walls and the orange light of a stove. What did the rest of it matter, here? The night could have been theirs, stolen and hidden away, to burn itself up like the last pieces of coal in the hearth.

Cursing, he threw himself through the door, taking the steps two at a time. He flashed past Madame's parlour, where a first client was taking tea. Pus.h.i.+ng aside the curtain he stumbled down the stairs, out into the street. It was empty. He swore again.

'Did I forget something?' a voice asked bitterly.

She was standing behind him, a handful of change in her gloved palm. Her eyes were rimmed with red. His arms went around her then, and at first she stood stiffly beneath his embrace.

'I am sorry,' he murmured into the soft fabric of her shoulder. 'I just want you. I don't care about the rest of it.'

'Of course you do.' The tears she had kept tightly held began to unravel. 'I saw your face, at the ptisserie, after the announcement. It frightened me. I wanted to scream at them all, tell them to go to h.e.l.l.'

He laughed, pulled away.

'That would have made me proud,' he said. 'Can you imagine-'

She kissed him then, a heedless kiss. He tightened his arms with growing urgency, before managing to drag his mouth away. The coins had spilled from her hand and lay like quicksilver at their feet. Several Belleville children were already creeping forward.

'Come on,' he smiled, pretending not to see, 'we can't stay out here.'

Before the stove, her bare shoulders looked like a painting; oil upon ochre. The chemise fell from one arm, then another. Her hair was loose, tangled above her chin. She held his gaze. The burn stretched from neck to collarbone, an uneven V-shape of scar tissue arching across smooth skin.

The bottle of absinthe was three-quarters empty, but even so they trembled, as if from cold. They were sheltered from the world by a flimsy lock, by the anonymity of the poor. It would be enough to protect them, if only for tonight.

Jeanne took his arm, pulled him with her until they were laying side by side, length against length upon the floor.

'Gui,' she said. Her breath was on his face, aniseed and so familiar that it made his heart contract. Outside, the bell at Menilmontant struck midnight, its voice lingering against the gla.s.s.

'You will be missed,' he whispered, stroking a few strands back from her cheek.

'I want to stay.' She shuffled closer to him, hesitating an inch apart. 'Let me stay.'

'What of your fiance?' he forced himself to ask.

'It should never have been. I was too young to know.'

'Know what?'

'That there would be you,' she said. 'That I have a choice.'

He wanted to tell her that he was no choice, tried to find a voice of reason for her sake, but all of it dissolved as she kissed him again. They could barely breathe for sharing each other's air.

'You asked me to marry you,' she told him. 'I am, now. The rest is just words.'

Chapter Thirty-Five.

May 1988 The article flutters in my hands, a thin sheet of paper. My grandfather's name my own surname glares up at me. Two columns squashed onto a page, but enough to lay waste to a reputation. Heart pounding, I begin to read: A BOULEVARD SENSATION.

Respected Business Rocked by Blackmail Scandal The sole topic of conversation amongst the well-heeled this week has been a revelation concerning that most reputable of meeting places: Ptisserie C. A case of seduction and exploitation, I your humble reporter and ear to the boulevard discovered the stunning details of this story in a most remarkable manner, and felt compelled to report them exclusively for The Word.

It came to my attention when, on the streets of the Left Bank, I met Monsieur G. du F.: an apprentice chef and resident of the notorious Rue de Belleville. I came to discover that this miscreant had, over the course of several months, inveigled his way into the affections of Mademoiselle C., the only child of Ptisserie C.'s ill.u.s.trious proprietor. His intent? The extraction of money.

This story itself is not so unfamiliar to daughters from wealthy families, who daily run the risk of being swept off their feet by charming, avaricious vagabonds. Indeed, the affair in question may have stopped short of harm, were it not for the fact that an engagement already existed between Mademoiselle C. and Monsieur Leonard B., youngest son of the celebrated lawyer and financial trader, Monsieur Edouard B.

'Unfortunately, Mademoiselle is a clever young woman,' an informant from inside the ptisserie confided. 'She went to great lengths to conceal the affair, believing herself to be in love with the youth.'

Thus, our source relates, the coquetry went beyond any point from which it could respectfully be retrieved. Monsieur C. was to discover this in a most unenviable manner, upon surprising his daughter in the company office, stealing funds in order to elope with the kitchen hand.

'Monsieur C was in a rage, understandably,' tells our chef, who witnessed the entire confrontation. 'He dragged du F from the premises and had him restrained outside whilst he telephoned for the gendarmes.'

One can only imagine the chaos amidst the kitchens; Monsieur C., shaking the young Bordelais the way one would a pup. We are informed by the local Gendarmerie that du F. fled the scene before they could arrive to quell the dispute.

Prior to employment at Ptisserie C., The Word has learned that du F. worked as a labourer for the National Railway.