Knowing Simone

Chapter Two

France, 1867

Lectoure. On the hazy horizon, no more than a cathedral spire and walls on its hilltop. From my muddy path under faded skies, protected by bushes against stiff winds, I stared ahead, recalling father’s last words after my near-disaster: ‘Have guile.’

He and Mama had huddled around me, their faces illuminated by flickering candlelight. Given a mother’s kiss and Papa’s hug in our back alley, told ‘Bon journey’, Papa slipped a note in my coat pocket without Mama seeing.

Escaping to Toulouse by train, I bought a donkey in the market and followed the Grand Canal and its towpaths on foot, resting in midday shade, dizzy from haste. Reopening the note, still expecting some heartfelt farewell or signs of affection that would shore up a young man’s heart, the words were the same: ‘Simone Beaufort. Lectoure. Work.’

‘Simone’? With his exaggerated handwriting, probably ‘Simon’. ‘Lectoure’- a small town of the Paye Gers, a bare dot on my hand-map. And ‘Work’. Always, he talks of work.

So, it’s go to Lectoure, find Simon Beaufort, and be employed.

Les optimiste.

I had no other plan. Adrift in unfamiliar countryside fringing the Garonne River, with my donkey, Victor, I followed directions, my saddlebags carrying Spartan clothing, false papers, a few francs and my tools of trade. Wandering the low hills amongst dullards, provincials and thieves, when would I find my brilliant future?

In the market town of Moissac, I read the note again: ‘Simone Beaufort. Lectoure. Work.’ A prospect, as Simon must be Papa’s friend. But how? The moon is closer to Marseilles than Lectoure.

‘Victor, we’ll follow the Grand Canal.’

After Mossaic, it wasn’t long before we diverted southwest on the old pilgrimage route to Santiago, journeying as one false pilgrim in search of redemption. Wearing a shell necklace I poached on my first night, we moved from hamlet to hamlet, everyone accepting my ‘sacred’ purpose. Ha. On the roadside near Auvillar, this fellow spied my shell, tipped his head, and held out his tongue with two fingers.

I left my books and correspondence behind lest suspicious authorities inhabiting the larger towns searched my bags and found contraband. With luck, they’d find my Book of Logarithms, proving I belonged to the hills, mountains and valleys of France, not Marseilles’ grimy streets and lanes.

‘Have guile,’ said Papa, familiar with my devotion to grand liberty. He acquired false papers for me long before, saying I was ‘Robert Le Mott’, a twenty-eight-year-old, experienced surveyor with handsome testimonials from employers in Lyon, Montpellier and Marseilles. How lucky Monsieur Beaufort would be having Monsieur Le Mott’s services, and not a twenty-two-year-old, inexperienced Patrice Monier.

‘There’s Lectoure,’ I said to wayward Victor when we emerged to high pasture. ‘Not far now, my dullard.’

Looking down valley, there was my destination atop a hill, a walled city from ancient times, its cathedral spire visible to us.

Taking a steep path downhill, we entered a shady forest, later joining light, wooded pastures beside a stream.

‘Your name should be Victoria,’ I said to my donkey. It was a few days before I realised that ‘he’ was a ‘she’. But I had Victor Hugo in mind.

Dragging the Contessa with the leather lead, I stepped into rippling waters, when the rope tighten, strained and pulled me backwards.

Crash! Into the shallows I fell.

‘Victor! You evil wart.’

The beast refused to enter the stream, and down I went. Drenched. The rogue. I lifted myself from the stream wet and annoyed, yanked the reins, and pledged to sharpen my wits after last month’s events. I could not afford to see Victor flee into the forest with my precious possessions.

‘Coping with you, Victor, is quite enough.’

She must have been the worst donkey in the marketplace, giving me nothing but trouble since we’d left Toulouse. Having freed her from the city’s accumulated garbage, when we came to crossing or stream, she’d halt.

‘You should be grateful for country air, forest, rivers, springs and orchards.’

But no; she liked nothing more than lazing in village markets and city backstreets hauling carts and putting her nose in refuse.

As the son of a struggling bookseller, unfamiliar with donkeys and their bad habits, I’d been disinclined to haggle over its physical attributes. I had acquired her without fuss, brought my supplies and left the city and its throng. How could I know Victor was a ‘she’ and would refuse my weight on her back?

From the moment we left, she displayed a stubborn aversion to iron bridges and running water. By luck, a country yokel pointed out that donkeys have a perverse fear of streams, rivers and iron bridges. We’d crossed twenty, but she had forgotten every previous success. So I held a carrot under her nose at every obstacle, pulling it away every time she stepped forward. And succeeded.

Ha. She must be dumb falling for that.

After crossing the stream we climbed the hill, heart and body working to clear my mind of all its fears. Stepping it out, that’s what I liked, being in the open air, body in harmony, with the clunk and clatter of my saddlebags.

We traversed hazelnut woods, passed bush and dark-vine thickets, eventually stopping to enjoy the still forest. Not a whiff of air pressed, and the windy hilltops I traversed all day, were behind us. No livestock, sheep or aggressive farm dog assaulted us. Not a bird’s cry came from the branches until …the trickling spring waters flowed under the leafy forest floor, ruffling the pale-yellow leaves, gurgling beneath litter and splashing on the lower rocks.

Thud. A hazelnut dropped.

Thud. Thud.

Like tuneless music.

Nature, I thought, so unlike the regularity of clocks.

Victor groaned.

‘D’accord. D’accord.’ I said, patting her neck. ‘If we hurry, and you give me no trouble, we’ll reach Lectoure before dark. Victor, a warm bed, soft straw and a roof over our heads.’

My map showed the pilgrimage path as a thin red line linking Moissac to Lectoure. It was contradicted by a bedevilling complex of country passageways, and rough wagon tracks crisscrossing the Gers hills. We passed tiny hamlets and barely clothed children staring at us like a circus come to town. With unfenced pastures, numerous droving paths and dense groves, I sought directions at every opportunity.

We met peasants. None owned a map. Nor did they believe them useful. I asked directions but struggled with their patois. With many unfamiliar words, my confusion rose, so we resorted to hand-signals. They just laughed when I took out my 1848 edition map, looking in askance at such fools who would need charts to traverse familiar countryside, the lands they were born in and would die in with pride.

Local were keen to touch, poke and stroke the clothes on my back. One fellow borrowed the hat from my head and passed it around from man to child to woman, always kept out of my reach until I my patience wore out. It provided them family amusement I guessed, a welcome diversion from their dull life, a brief interlude before some wretched disease struck them down.

I pushed on, aware that Ger’s peasants twisted, removed or redirected ageing signage in any direction but the right one. With twelve francs and forty centimes in my pocket, I dreamt of a Toulouse bouchon and intelligent conversation, not the stale baguette and cheese I kept in my sac. I even longed for the steamed beetroot of a Marseilles street vendor.

‘Monsieur,’ I said to a carter at an approaching junction.

The fellow gave up staring at the road. He had no doubt seen me earlier, but greetings must come from the stranger first.

‘Monsieur. Which is the better path to Lectoure?’

He didn’t answer. Dressed in filthy rags and a straw hat that hid his face, he made Victor look more obliging. I pulled her back, even before the fellow’s reply.

‘Lec ...toure,’ he said. ‘Strange place to be going.’

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Chapter 2

Lectoure’s pilgrim hospitale was a putrid, thatched-roofed shelter attached to the cathedral stables, held up with log supports and enclosed with daub. It had four rough beds pushed against the stone church wall, a stool and bench in its darker corner beside hay and woodpiles, a single, cobwebbed window inviting wintery light. With no other resident pilgrim arriving, or likely to during the colder months, no one tested our deceit.

When the parish priest left, impatient for other business, I could lead Victor into my manger, relax on my bed and place my possessions under the hay, out of sight of prying priests and rogues who would steal from the poor.

‘You snore, Victor. And you’ve bad breath,’ I said, lashing her to a pole.

Fetching water from the well, I washed on the platform outside, making myself as presentable as any person might in my circumstance. Despite my sore and sorry state, I would make Simon Beaufort’s acquaintance without delay, as I fancied a glass of wine and a new acquaintance after my travels. Perhaps we’d reminisce about my Papa.

In the evening light, Lectoure’s stony lanes were already dewy, a rodent saw crawling over fallen leaves, hugging the line of wall seen in weak lamplight.

‘I am Robert, Robert LeMotte,’ I said under my breath.

‘Robert, Robert LeMotte.’

From the cathedral square, Lectoure’s medieval streets proceeded in all directions, the basilica’s hulk in the upper town looming over me like a giant against the sky. With a hint of moonlight behind the high clouds, a few muffled voices could be heard behind thin walls. Rue Imperiale’s long main street ran downhill, its shops and homes appearing as a mass of doors, awnings and shutters, their windowpanes revealing a pale-yellow light that suggested that everyone remained indoors at this early hour. 

Passing rough-hewn wooden doors adorned with crosses, holly and dried herbs, I trudged the lane to the aromas of stewed vegetables, and the sight of stone and wooden houses. My single enquiry for Simon Beaufort’s abode received a stranger’s laugh. The thin passer-by in a greatcoat pointed down a lane off the square. ‘Down the end,’ he said. ‘Against the wall. And say how-de-do to Simon.’

Ignoring his flippant tone, I walked the narrow lane until it forked left and right. Confronted by a substantial two-storey edifice, with the old city wall beyond, the sign on the gate read ‘Beaufort Industry’. A small window poking from under the landing suggested a third, basement level.

Adjusting my clothing, and rubbing my neck for good measure, I knocked on the door. After some time, a young girl appeared, around ten years old I guessed, with long, light hair, wearing a loose smock.

‘It is not done,’ she said.

‘And you are?’

‘It is not done.’

I guessed this waif considered my front-door arrival inappropriate. The servant’s entrance was my rightful place. Clutching my hat, unsure whether to return it to my head and walk away or set her to rights, I stood about. Fortunately, a woman appeared behind her.

‘Thank you, Mimi,’ said this handsome Madame with black hair and large eyes. When she put her hand on the girl’s shoulders, little Mimi shrank behind her mistress’s deep blue crinolette decorated with a red neckband.

‘You cannot visit here by night, monsieur,’ she said.

As my case pressed, and it was barely dark, so retreat was no option.

‘I believe you offer employment.’

‘Not at all. You must visit our office and factory. Tomorrow.’

‘Madame. May I speak to your husband? I –’

‘Husband? You, stupid fellow.’

Stupid? So ...what? The husband is dead?

‘I have come from Marseilles. My father is –’

‘Ah,’ she said, her face cresting before her finger tapped her chin.

‘And your name is?’

Mon Dieu! Do I present as twenty-two-year-old Patrice Monier or my false twenty-eight-year-old Robert LeMott? Will I win a job as Patrice or Robert? And if she knows Papa, what will Robert LeMott mean to her?

‘Surely you remember your name.’

‘Patrice. Patrice Monier. Homeless.’

She shifted her body, arms unfolding, swaying to one side. ‘Then ...perhaps you should …Come in.’

Despite my bravado, I wondered again: was it right, invited into a woman’s home at night? Thank goodness the cold suggested her invitation was merely merciful. Another class of person I supposed, someone wealthy, beautiful, elegant, a mistress of her home. If she had a husband, where was he?

Looking about, a single candle on a polished mahogany table lit the room. No lantern was seen, nor any fire burning. I could barely distinguish its furniture, walls and wooden beams. There were some upholstered chairs, a sofa and a table pushed into a corner. Lithographic illustrations hung from its walls, their subjects impossible to discern.

‘What is it you want young man?’ she said.

What could I say to that bald question? No acknowledgement of Papa. At a time like this, is it guile I required, or a friend?

‘Here is my father’s note,’ I said. I’d expose myself, as she would not.

I handed it over, savvy that any rogue or police agent could have written it. And looking to her passive face only confirmed it.

‘Papa is a bookseller in Marseilles.’

‘Is that right? What else?’

What indeed? Who would trust who when Bonaparte’s spies, police, taxmen, priests, sheriffs, prefects, and legitimists were his paid informers? And what did she know of Papa and me? My hand sweated.

‘Because I look like him.’

‘And what else?’

What else? Am I going mad? I am Patrice. I am Patrice!

‘Look at my face. My features,’ I said. ‘Are we not alike?’

With her height equalling mine, she lifted her candle to my face, the light falling on my hastily washed features and bedraggled clothes. She ran her eyes over me like a cat examining its next meal. Humiliating. But close to her broad face and narrowing eyes, I lingered on her dark hair and sublime lips.

How did she and father meet? How could Papa befriend someone like her? My Papa devours books, and I see none about me. Why had he never spoken of her?

‘Look. My livret says I am Robert LeMotte. Perhaps you’d rather call me that name.’

‘You may be known by any name you wish. It pays to do so.’

‘Like Jean Valjean,’ I said, realizing that Victor Hugo’s character in Les Miserables lived with two identities.

‘Like Jean Valjean,’ she said with a faint smile.

‘You know Les Miserables?’

‘That doesn’t make you Patrice Monier, or Valjean.’

I could have burst out with ‘So we’re back to that again,’ but instead said:

‘No. I am not Patrice Monier. He is a surveyor. He could tell you that your house faces east, twenty degrees north, away from the rising sun. This room remains dark by day, unless you open your backroom windows between ten and fourteen hours, providing light for no more than four hours. Because your winter light is short, so upstairs windows facing the south. In which case, you spend more time upstairs than down. In this room is a fireplace and central lantern but both are rarely used. Nevertheless, your wall mirrors reflect light towards the staircase, perhaps to fathom the draws hidden beneath. Your ceiling is exactly three-point-one metres high, and given each step on your stairs is fourteen centimetres, you have twenty-two steps to the next floor. The heels on your shoes are broad to avoid the cracks and gaps in your floorboards. Perhaps you fell, so you’ve added rugs, and no doubt above as well, making it quieter. You own this property as your path is spotless and your gate does not squeak. See. Am I not Patrice Monier?’

Madame said nothing, taking a seat in the nearest chair, her eyes fixed on me. Perhaps she had never counted the number of steps in her house.

‘Would you like to hear more?’

‘That will be sufficient,’ she said. ‘I have heartell you are too sure of yourself. Show me your papers.’

‘But they say I am Robert LeMotte.’

‘Then from this moment, that is who you must be.’

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Chapter 3

After my night in a manger, I fed Victor and nursed my sore feet before returning to bed. Later that morning, Father Joseph interrupted my slumbers, enquiring about my pilgrimage, before showing me the road to Eauze. After he expelled Victor from the barn, I extended my stay another night, in no mood for argument or explanations.

Madame Beaufort’s Mimi arrived soon after, pulling me by hand through Lectoure, up the hill and outside the ‘gates’, to Madame’s workshops. Though my feet ached, I was pleased to escape the wretched priest who looked incredulous at his failing pilgrim.

Mimi pointed to Beaufort Industry’s monstrous iron-and-timber building. When I approached it, I was prevented from entering by an officious clerk or scribe who eyed me and held up his arm. As Mimi too halted, I looked beyond the entrance to see rough men carrying wooden planks, and using brace and pulley. Batons and wagon apparatus was stacked and hung in neat rows along the wall. Men loaded sacks on wagons or piled them in the centre, other’s hammered on anvils and hauled pulleys. Horses stamped their hooves, and an overseer barked orders. The smell of ash, leather, coal, dung and wood filled the air. This place of scraping metal, puffing men and straining animals was a far cry from Papa’s bookshop.

After signing on as Monsieur LeMotte in the scribe’s huge leather-bound book, Mimi pointed to the office before escaping to the street.

Madame’s office occupied the workshop’s near corner, a glass and metal enclosure, built like a glasshouse with a single hissing, burning gasilage hanging at its centre. Its hideous light beamed on filing shelves and paper records stored beside the desks. This cluttered, pulsing brain directed the muscles, arms and legs of the workshop’s men and horses.

Madame wore a plain black dress with a broad waistband. It hung au naturale below the waist, seemingly unsupported by voluminous undergarments and fashionable foundations that would be absurd in a place of work. Her polished black leather boots and dark grey bow tie were her only concessions to decoration.

At last, she presented me to the foreman and scribe as ‘Monsieur LeMotte’. After handshakes, she dismissed them, grabbing a file and turning away, her glossy black hair tied with a mauve-grey ribbon.

I almost gave up on her when she finally spoke.

‘You understand your situation?’ she said in a flat voice, putting down an invoice. When she returned, surprised to find me within touching distance, she eyed me coldly.

‘I will employ Mr Robert LeMott. So when someone calls you by that name,’ she said, ‘you must answer immediately. If someone calls you by your old name, he is your enemy.’

‘Who tied your hair ribbon?’ I said, knowing it would be difficult to do on her own.

‘Adjust ...adjust quickly, young fellow or your disguise will be lost. The consequences could be dire. Your Papa would be devastated.’

I tipped my head in acknowledgement, her gravity unexpected. She knows Papa, I thought. And how could she call me ‘young fellow’? She couldn’t be ten years my senior.

‘I run great risk harbouring you,’ she said. ‘Do not fail me. Do not fail yourself.’ Her fingers tapped a paperweight before another word came from her sweet lips.

‘I am assigning you to my engineer, Monsieur Gruoin. He will familiarise you with our enterprise. As his assistant, I warn you: do not issue orders or expect anyone’s obedience. Do not assume I will support your mistakes. Monsieur Gruoin is waiting outside.’

She pointed to the entrance. Dismissed, just like that.

Outside, men, goods and wagons were in permanent ferment; as well they might with Madame Beaufort and her scribe watching over all. I shook the scribe’s hand again in passing, leaving him to his inks and quill. Who could have imagined such a woman commanding such brutish and officious men?

Engineer Gruoin stood by his light wagon. In a dark coat and tall black hat, his thin face had a thick ginger moustache and crease down his cheek that could be mistaken for a scar. Perhaps forty years old, with deep-set eyes and brows of resignation. Once I’d shaken his strong hand, I hopped aboard, noticing his short fingers and dirty nails.

‘I’ll show you around,’ he said.

Show me around what? I wondered, none the wiser to the nature of Madame’s business.

Gruoin shook the reins, horse and wagon pulling into daylight, promptly leaving walled Lectoure for the light pastures below its walls. Open skies reminded me of the expansive Mediterre, this Gers region without its salty breezes, of course, but still had its bustling winds, soft blue skies and hazy clouds. Like a knife through butter, I remembered my beloved family, friends and good-old, rotten Marseilles’ streets, markets and sailor boys out for a bit of fun.

No time for sentiment though. I held the boards for my rough ride, not comprehending Madame’s project and its connection with Papa. Beaufort Industry couldn’t be farming, I reasoned. With no produce inside its walls, the workshop’s materials and engineering activity suggested bridge-building or road-making.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the face,’ said Gruoin, as we descended the hill on a rutted track to the valley floor.

This fellow set a pace, our light wagon flinging earth into the air, slicing through sticks and earth, overrunning protruding rocks, threading stumps and running through ochre ponds. We crossed a field between low green hills on a track where heavily loaded bullock wagons had churned the ground. Animal dung from day-to-day traffic littered the fields mixing with Gers’ rich earth, making a dark and treacherous mud. You could see that logs had been positioned over the quagmire to avoid wide diversions.

Whipping the reins on both horses, he pushed past a section of rutted, uneven track. ‘We quarry coal,’ he said, looking straight ahead, concentrating, or perhaps not good at looking people in the eye, though his sly smile alone suggested he could read my mind.

Our journey continued without conversation, the sun flickering hard against my eyes, leafless trees entangling the sky. The fellow negotiated our wagon across a stream, pushing the horses hard, and scattering sheep from our path. When we entered the shadows beneath a line of stark apple trees, the wagon struck a log, shuddered and halted, our wheel lodged deep in mud.

‘Merde,’ said the engineer.

Lending a helping hand, I lifted, rocked and pushed the back wheel from the rut, Gruoin laughing when he found my last clean clothes soiled and muddy. The god of caution told me to laugh too, and not ask this fellow too much about himself, lest he asks the same of me.

‘We’re extracting coal?’ I said, back on board.

At last, Gruoin drove at a slower pace.

‘A little. We dig it out, haul it to town, bag it and sell it.’

‘Far afield?’

‘As far as Agen,’ he said.

Agen? I thought. That’s only thirty kilometres away.

‘Madame has bigger plans,’ he added. ‘Mining the seams. Underground.’

‘You said ‘Madame.’’

‘Insists she is married. Never seen Monsieur. Where are the children? The mad witch takes us for fools.’

I laughed, hiding my surprise, remembering Papa’s saying ‘Make friends. We have enough enemies’. I’d let Gruoin think I accepted his understanding, a man’s understanding. He slanders her behind her back, I thought, but reckon, he dares not to her face.

‘So how did Madame come to own this enterprise?’

He turned to me, loosening the reins. ‘How do you think?’

Not knowing what he meant, I remained silent.

‘She’s Parisienne, isn’t she?’

Ah ha. Imputation and induction from our engineer. How often we of the south conjure Paris for all the sins of France’s kings, dukes and emperors, and the women who kept their company. Offered their favours, so many were known to collect rewards from their masters.

All unsurprising for Marseilliens, who saw Emperor Napoleon claim our promenade for the exclusive use by his wife, damn her. Built herself a chateau on the headland, our cynics suggesting that the Emperor wanted Eugenie and her piety out of his way, so he would have all Paris as his indulgence.

Perhaps Gruoin too wants Madame out of his way, I thought. Perhaps he has his plans, though he is too free and easy with his words. Thinking me a stranger, he had confided in me readily, without first discovering my sympathies.

I wondered too why Madame Beaufort asked nothing about Papa or his well-being. I also noted her secretive and commanding nature, though admittedly it heightened her attraction for a wayward fellow experienced beyond his years. I’d find out more. And soon.

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Chapter 4

After my first week, I left the hospitale, offered a servant’s cottage behind Madame’s mansion, accessed from a narrow back alley. In Mimi’s company, I pushed past the gate to the cottage’s cobblestone courtyard in the shadow of the city wall, seeing ramshackle stables suitable almost as large as my abode.

Grand news for Victor.

Dwarfed by her home of three levels, my stone and wood residence had a shingle roof, single-paned, shutter windows and an improvised awning over the door. Two washtubs and a rope line awaited its new master.