chapter 4 - "The Sigh of a Faraway Song"
When Grace woke up the next day, she half-wished that she had Wilf pawing her awake.
It had taken her a long time to get to sleep, so riled up and full of unease as she was. But eventually she had drifted off at God-knows what hour. She didn't have a clock in her bedroom.
But when the sun crept over the horizon, spilling in through that gorgeous window in her tower room, she was instantly awake. She wished she could have had a few blissful minutes having forgotten where she was, but no. She was painfully aware of where she was all night.
The air was too cold, the bed was too big, the sheets were too scratchy, and it was so so quiet. No thrumming car engines, no humming immersion boilers, no hissing of running taps, she even missed the sound of the next-door neighbour's radio bleeding through the wall.
She got up, and paced for a few moments around the room in her nightshirt. Normally, on a free morning, she'd get herself a cup of coffee and watch Saturday Morning Kitchen with Wilf. But it still felt early. Too early for Artemida to be along anytime soon to help her get dressed. So, she threw caution to the wind and decided to venture out alone. B
Grace tiptoed down the tower stairs, holding the hem of her nightshirt in her hands like a Disney princess. The house was quiet and fresh with the newness of the morning. Her naked feet pattered on the bare floor and she hurried back over to the little drawing room where she had first spoken with Julius and Jocelyn.
Her first mission that day was to find out exactly what year she was in. Grace theorised that there might be some kind of letter or discarded newspaper laying about somewhere and she vowed to try and lay her hands on one. The drawing room was empty when she entered. Yesterday, in her state of panic, she hadn't really looked around it properly. It was a cosy space with all the trappings and furnishings of a provincial country estate. Books lined the walls, floor to ceiling, in a beautiful tiled array of mauves and browns and navy-blue leather. There were countless trinkets and antiques dotted about: a bust of a Roman general in one corner, an elephant foot umbrella stand in another, and the Chinese vase that she'd vomited in yesterday was back in its place. And she couldn't quite believe that she'd missed the wonderful grand piano poised in the alcove of the bay window.
Now, she'd seen some fine pianos in those cream-coloured houses on the Woodstock Road, but this was a beautiful instrument. Her feet led her over to its side and she reverently stroked the rich mahogany woodwork and ran her fingers over the ebony and ivory keys. It looked like a Pleyel to her. "The marriage of crystal and water", Liszt had once described these pianos. Musicians like her dreamed of playing pianos like this. Her fingers itched to touch it…
Focus, Grace! She suddenly thought, snapping out of her transfixment. Not now…!
She scanned the titles of books on the walls, hoping that she might recognise a publication that might hint at the year she was in. Having run her hand over a few anthologies she didn't recognise, she decided to try the desk.
She felt embarrassed as she began rifling her way through the drawers. If her hosts caught her going through their papers, she didn't quite know how she would explain it. Every so often she would nervously cast her eyes up to the door, and then resume her searching. And then she found what she was after.
"Aha!"
A letter. A letter dated '9th April 1831'.
Her stomach dropped when she read the date.
"Eighteen fucking thirty one…" she breathed.
She knew she'd been a long way in the past, but seeing it written there, in harsh black ink, made it all the more real. Almost two hundred years in the past.
Her eyes travelled down the page and she read the words without really meaning to.
"Dear Madame,
I regret to inform you that your son, Marcelin, has not attended any academic lectures since Michaelmas term.
It appears that he and his Philosophy lecturer had something of a disagreement over the divine right of our great and glorious monarch, Louis-Philippe. He was asked to leave the lecture theatre, and he has not returned since.
It is with deep regret that I must inform you that he is no longer considered a student of the Sorbonne.
Yours, in service,
François Guizot"
This was something she'd overheard Jocelyn and Julius speaking about last night: Their son, Marcelin, and whatever he was getting up to in Paris. Or, more to the point, not getting up to, judging by the contents of this letter.
"Marcelin, you naughty boy." She whispered, cracking a small smile.
Grace knew now, from the date of the letter, that this was that odd time of French history where they seemed to be yo-yoing back and forth from Monarchy to Republic.
1789. That's when the Revolution was. She remembered.
Her teacher had taught her to remember that date by the 7 8 9. The ascending numbers. But outside of that date, and some vague recollections about the Napoleon years, that was the limit of her knowledge. She'd been a Music student, after all, not History.
So, this was post-revolutionary France. Post-Bonapartian France. There was a time when these people had killed the King, and had tried to change the world too fast. Now, they had another King. And it seemed he was no better than the last.
Furthermore, it seemed Marcelin knew this too.
A rebel child.
A Revolutionary.
Grace jumped when she heard voices coming from somewhere else in the Chateau. She rammed the letter back in the desk drawer and hurried for the door.
When she emerged back in the foyer, she tuned her ears to the voices and listened carefully. From where she guessed they were coming from, they seemed to be in a part of the Chateau she hadn't visited yet. Grace tiptoed across the wooden floor, trying to get closer to hear what was being said. She stopped, just outside of the Château's kitchens, smelling fresh-baked bread in the air.
"Take it. God bless you."
"Thank you, Mademoiselle."
"You too. God bless you."
"God bless you, Mademoiselle."
Grace poked her head out of her hiding spot, peering around the archway with intrigue. Standing on the other side of the kitchen, at another doorway that led to the Château's gardens, was Artemida. On the workbench in the centre of the kitchen were the leftovers from last night's meal. And hovering just outside the garden doorway was a small crowd of beggars.
Grace watched as, one by one, the poor would approach Artemida and she would tear them a chunk of bread off a fresh baguette and fill it with a slice of ham and a handful of vegetables. She would give the food to them with a 'God bless you' and they always responded with their gratitude.
Grace studied each of the beggars carefully. Men, women, children, babies. All of them had their poverty carved into their faces. Some of them even wept and kissed Artemida on the cheek before they left to eat their food. And Grace was shocked to her core by them; she had seen homeless people and tramps before, but never starving, desperate souls quite like this.
The last of the beggars took their food and wished Artemida well. There was quiet again for a long while as the maid dusted the bread flour from her hands and turned back to the Kitchen with a sigh. Grace watched as she cut herself a slice of the leftover ham and ate it wearily.
Feeling brave, Grace stepped out of her hiding spot.
"Do you do that every morning?" She asked.
Artemida flinched and dropped her slice of ham on the workbench.
"Mademoiselle Grace! What are you doing down here? Only the servants are up this early."
"I'm sorry if I startled you." Grace said with an apologetic glance to her dropped ham.
"Mon dieu, are you in your nightshirt too, Mademoiselle?!"
She looked down at the starched cotton shirt on her body, wiggling her naked toes.
"You should have rung for me if you wanted to rise early." Artemida said, bustling over to her.
"Who were those people at the door?" She asked, nodding to the other end of the kitchen.
Artemida sighed and lay her hands on Grace's shoulders.
"They are just the…local unfortunates. Those too ill or too unlucky to thrive. Madame Jocelyn and Monsieur Julius insist that whatever leftovers we have from the previous night's meal are handed out to the poor on the morrow. I told you they were good, kind people."
"Oh. I see." Grace said, unable to forget the faces of those sickeningly hungry people at the back door.
"Before he went away to Paris, Monsieur Marcelin would help me with the food in the mornings. I used to tell him to go back to bed, but he would have none of it." Artemida laughed quietly.
"I'd like to help." Grace said quickly. "If you're a pair of hands down, let me help. Get me up as soon as you're up. I can make sandwiches, no bother."
If she was going to be stuck in this place, perhaps forever, she had to find her usefulness in it. Or something, anything, that endeared her to this world.
"Sandwiches? What are sandwiches?" She asked, her face frowning.
"You know…The little bread thing with the filling in the middle that you were making up just then."
"Oh." Artemida laughed. "I've never heard them referred to like that. I just sort of…made it up so the poor could carry their food away without getting their hands dirty. Is that what they are called in Oxford? Sand-witches?"
Grace coloured red. There she was, slipping up again with her modern mind and her modern words.
"Whatever you call them..." Grace said hurriedly. "...Let me help you. Let me help them."
Artemida chewed on her bottom lip for a moment.
"Alright." she nodded. "I think you and Monsieur Marcelin would have been great friends."
The maid's eyes went distant and introspective.
"You speak about him as though he's dead." Grace said with a frown.
Artemida sighed. "I do not mean to. I know he has gone to Paris to become a great man. But…"
"But what?"
"I just wish he didn't have to break his poor parents' hearts to do so."
There was silence for a good long while. Grace had heard the grief and worry in Julius and Jocelyn's voices. The way their own son seemed to be a sore topic of conversation.
"Come. Let's get you dressed, Mademoiselle."
Grace let herself be led away by the maid, back through the kitchen and out into the foyer.
"I'm sorry I interrupted your breakfast." Grace said meekly as she started climbing the first few steps.
"Oh, please don't apologise, Mademoiselle." Artemida replied, blushing slightly. "I ate already with Matthaeus at dawn, but I cannot resist a slice of honeyed ham when I see it."
In a world full of starvation and hunger, Grace didn't begrudge her that sentiment at all.
"I won't tell anyone if you won't." she responded with a wink.
The maid smiled wickedly at her, suppressing a giggle.
"On second thoughts, perhaps you and Monsieur Marcelin are best going on as strangers."
"Oh yeah, and why is that?"
"There is a touch of impishness about you, Mademoiselle Grace!" She laughed.
"Oh, does that mean that I'm a 'bad influence' in normal person's speak?"
"Never, Mademoiselle! I would never presume to be so bold!"
The two of them laughed and climbed the stairs up the tower together.
Grace was slightly dreading getting re-dressed in all of those skirts and heavy fabric, but at least she felt more grounded now. She knew the year, she had a vague idea of the history of this land, and she'd made at least one ally for now…
A few days passed by without incident.
Grace would wake up early, help Artemida with the morning food distributions, the day would amble by with walks in the garden or quiet hours in the drawing room reading with Jocelyn, dinner would be a sober and polite affair, and Grace would end the day having a cry in her bedroom when she was all alone.
The boredom hit her hard. For the first day or so, it was a struggle to fight the urge to reach for her phone every few minutes. Her attention-span was childish. She was so used to having instant gratification: instant messages, instant videos, instant shopping… This world ran at a much slower pace and she was still trying to slow down to its rhythm.
So, when Grace had overheard Artemida bustling about in the foyer, she had begged Artemida to take her into Provins with her. She longed to see that mediaeval town on the cusp of her tower view up close. So, the two of them began the twenty minute walk into the centre of the dwelling, arm in arm.
"I shall need to stop by the greengrocers and the butchers…Oh, and the haberdashery and the boulangerie…" Artemida mumbled, reading the note of groceries Jocelyn had given her. "Monsieur Julius also wants a bottle of his favourite cognac."
"I can help." Grace said chipperly.
"No, no. You do not know these people. Athos, the Butcher, he would sell you the most dreadful cut of meat and pretend like it was filet mignon. Are you a seasoned haggler?"
"Uhh…not really."
"Hmm. I thought not."
"But I can use my…other charms to get a few good deals." Grace added, casting a flirtatious wink and a smile at Artemida.
"Mademoiselle!" The maid exclaimed in shock. But Grace saw the faint twinge of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
"Come on, you must have batted your eyelashes at the fruit-seller to get a good price on the apples."
"I assure you, I have not!" She exclaimed indignantly.
"Alright, alright. I believe you." Grace said with a squeeze of her arm. "You seem like a woman of virtue to me."
"I should hope so."
Artemida craned her head high and cast Grace a haughty, grinning look. They both broke out into a giggle and resumed their stroll.
They walked along in silence for a while, along the banks of a small stream lined with bull-rushes and wildflowers. Indigo dragonflies skimmed along the water like elemental sprites and Grace got lost in the beauty of it for a little while.
Eventually, they reached the mediaeval walls of Provins. Round turrets were uniformly dotted along the walls with a deep, but now empty moat carved out in front of it. The gawping Grace had to be dragged along by Artemida as they passed through the gatehouse and into the town proper.
It was something from out of a fairy story book. The village from the opening number of Beauty and the Beast come to life. The houses that lined the streets were a chequered mix of exposed timber and creamy plaster. Tradesmen and merchants bustled about, dodging in and out of warehouses and tithe barns, a cornucopia of food and luxury goods in their arms. Pigs and chickens roamed the cobbled streets too, being driven to market by the farmers behind them. Grace couldn't decide where to look; it was all so…different.
She had been frightened by this world when she had first peered out at it from her carriage window. Now, she was rather charmed by it.
"There is a bookstore in town. You can look in there while you wait for me." Artemida said suddenly, tugging on her sleeve. "Or, there is a small cafe in the town square. They do the most sumptuous eclairs there."
"I'll be fine, don't worry about me." Grace replied soothingly, casting her eyes about. "Besides, I was going to have a little explore."
"On your own?! Unchaperoned?! Impossible."
"Why 'impossible'?!" Grace asked impatiently. "You will be travelling about on your own. Why not me?"
"Because you are a Lady, Mademoiselle Grace. I am a maid."
Artemida looked away, and Grace too felt the urge to cast her eyes to the floor. She felt the class-divide widen between them in that moment.
"Oh."
"Perhaps later, when my errands are run, we could both-"
"What about the Church?" Grace asked, pointing towards the belltower as the peeling sound of chimes rang out over Provins. "Surely a Lady can visit Church by herself. What dodgy things can I possibly get up to in there?"
Artemida but her lip and thought for a moment.
"I suppose." She said eventually.
Grace was marching off in the direction of the church as soon as Artemida had muttered her approval.
"Perhaps you might pray that God grant you more patience, Mademoiselle Grace!" She called after her.
"If God actually listens to my prayers, I'll be asking him for much more than just that!" Grace called back.
Artemida sighed and waved her off. Grace too waved her goodbye and then turned back towards the ringing bells.
By the time she reached the doors of the Church, Grace was already breathless with excitement. The dome of Saint-Quiriace loomed high above her and larks flitted about in the sky above. The faces of stone saints and gargoyles loomed down on her. For a brief moment, she was reminded of home, of Christchurch.
A pang of homesickness spread through her and she swallowed her emotion down hard. Gathering herself, she opened the heavy wooden doors and stepped inside.
The Church smelt of burning incense and candle-wax. It took her a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but when they did, she saw others knelt at the pews around her, heads bent in prayer. Her heels clacked along the marble floor in the silence, but those around her didn't seem to mind. She approached the altar with reverence, her eyes skimming over the beautiful stained-glass windows and the kaleidoscope of light they cast all around. It felt peaceful here.
For once, she was glad of the lack of distraction. The lack of phones and Tiktok and Instagram, it made her mind quiet. However, when she sat down herself in a random pew, looking up at the altar, she wished she could hear something in the quiet. A voice telling her everything was going to be okay.
Grace glanced around her at the other worshippers, lips moving silently and eyes closed. She leaned forwards and awkwardly placed her hands together.
"Uhh… Oh, hang on."
She crossed herself hurriedly, remembering that's what she was meant to do.
"I'm… I'm not really sure what to do. Or what to say." she mumbled. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned? Or is that just for Confession?"
She groaned and almost gave up, but she adjusted her bum in her seat and bent her head again.
"I'm… I'm lost." she admitted. "And I'm scared. And I want to go home. I've never had so much time in my own head, to think, to do nothing…and it's excruciating. Before I came here, I hated being alone with my thoughts, and now, I have nothing but them. It's like a special kind of hell just for me."
She paused for a moment. If the Big Man was listening, she surely would have burst into flames for mentioning 'Hell' in his house.
"I want to see Mum again." she said, her voice growing thick. "I want to see Wilf, and Oxford… fuck, I'll even see David again if it means I can go home."
Her voice failed her as tears sprang up in her eyes.
"Artemida thinks I should pray for patience, but I want to pray for kindness. Please…be kind to me. I don't know why the Story Teller sent me here, but surely I didn't deserve it? After…after everything I've been through, did you really have to do this to me?"
"God does not cause our woes, dear Lady." An unfamiliar voice suddenly said behind her.
Grace jumped and turned around in her pew where she saw a man, thick of beard and hidden beneath a worker's cap, sitting in the seat behind her.
"He guides us through them." The man added sagely.
Grace tried to hide her tears from him, turning her face away in embarrassment. The next thing she knew, a handkerchief was flapping in her face.
Grace reluctantly took it from the man who had been sat behind her, who now stood tall and steadfastly at her side. She nodded once to him and blew her nose.
"I thought prayers were meant to be private, Monsieur." She said rather haughtily to him as she dried her eyes.
"I apologise, Mademoiselle, for eavesdropping. But I once thought like you do, and a kind soul once set me on the right path, so I have always tried to do the same."
Their eyes locked again and Grace studied him more carefully. He was an older gentleman- perhaps about the same age as Julius - but he carried more bulk on his body, more lines on his face and more calluses on his hands, more grey in his hair. Yet it was his eyes that were the oldest thing about him. They ached with something deep and painful that Grace couldn't quite place.
The clothes he wore were brown and simple. The smell of fresh soil clung to him and she saw it both on his knees and under his fingernails. He leant upon a garden rake as he stared right back at her, and Grace also had the feeling that she was being similarly assessed by him.
"Well, thank you Monsieur." She said, holding the handkerchief out towards him.
"Keep it. My daughter makes me enough of them. I have handkerchiefs coming out of my ears!"
Grace laughed.
"Perhaps you can hang on to it until your spirits are lifted." He added gently.
Grace's smile dropped and she looked into her lap. The handkerchief was delicately embroidered with the letters U and F.
"Well, thank you, Mister F. But I'm afraid the Archangel Gabriel, Saint Peter, and the whole of the choir invisible could appear before me now and my spirits would not be lifted."
"Oh, my. Is it all that bad?" He asked her with a sympathetic frown, a small tease in his voice.
"Fraid so." Grace sighed. "And yes, I feel like a complete wretch because no, I'm not starving to death and no, I'm not drying in the gutter and no, I'm not out on the street-"
"You do not have to justify yourself to me, Mademoiselle. Sorrow is sorrow. And in my life I have learnt to recognise it in people."
Grace offered him a weak smile, and he smiled back.
Glancing over his shoulder, he turned back to her with a grin.
"Have you visited the convent gardens before, Mademoiselle?"
"I didn't even know there was a convent. Or gardens."
"Well I certainly should!" He laughed. "My name is Ultime Fauchelevent. I'm the gardener here."
"A pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Fauchelevent." Grace replied with a polite nod. "Are they…nice gardens?" She asked, her interest piqued.
"The finest in the île-de-France, Mademoiselle."
Her smile widened, and she reached out a hand to the strange gardener. Fauchelevent helped her to her feet and led her through the Church.
Within moments, she was stood at another stone archway that led out of the main nave. Through the doorway, she could glimpse the gentle rustle of leaves and the smell of something florally pungent. There was music, too. A small chorus of women's voices singing Frère Jacques. And if she wasn't curious before, she certainly was now.
Fauchelevent waved her through the archway first and she bravely stepped forwards. Grace emerged into the light of day in what appeared like a large square courtyard. Again, it was so very like the inner quads that she was used to seeing in Oxford, but instead of perfectly manicured lawns of grass, there were flowers everywhere.
Actually, not quite flowers, she corrected herself. Everywhere she looked, there were poised and primed buds. All just a few weeks away from bursting into beauty. The garden bristled with life. Butterflies flitting amongst the bushes, birds bathing in a small fountain at the centre of the space, and the heavenly voices of the women dancing through the air.
"This whole place will be teeming with roses soon." Fauchelevent said, gazing around at his handiwork. "By late summer, you'll be sick of the sight of them."
"Never… I love roses." Grace replied.
"What is your favourite colour?"
"Hmm…" She thought for a moment. "Yellow."
"Yellow." Fauchelevent repeated with a nod. "I shall have to pick some for you. My daughter favours pink. Not the most complementary of colours together, but I have no doubt they will make a fine bouquet regardless."
"Papa!" a girl's voice suddenly cried out.
"And speak of the devil…" Fauchelevent added quietly with a small grin.
A young girl dressed in an immaculate school uniform came running towards them from out of the vine-covered cloisters at the edges of the garden. She smiled broadly, carrying a bundle of books in her arms. Her wide eyes were full of happiness as she approached Grace and Fauchelevent.
"Cosette!" a nun called out scornfully to her.
Grace's world slowed when she heard that name.
She was fresh-faced and golden haired, and in Grace's mind violins began to swoon in a gorgeous, rising melody.
But when Grace felt like she was approaching something like recognition, something slammed into her mind.
A splinter. A wedge. A wall.
It went right up around the place in her head where the origin of that melody was.
Something was stopping her from remembering where that melody came from.
"Cosette, stop!" The nun called out again.
But the girl did not stop. Instead, she threw herself into the arms of Fauchelevent and he hugged her tight to him.
"Cosette, you impatient girl, get back here at once!" the nun called out again.
Grace glanced over to her to see a group of similarly dressed young ladies staring at them and clutching their books tight to their chests. They peered out from the columns of the cloisters with wide eyes, waiting to see if their fellow student would be reprimanded for breaking ranks.
"It's alright Sister Angelique, I was having a small respite anyway. I will escort the young lady back to her lessons in due course." Fauchelevent called out to the nun.
The holy-woman gave a huff of defeat, turning red underneath her cassock, and strode away.
"Come along, girls!" she cried, and the student all went scurrying about after her.
"Oh, thank you Papa. If I'd have had to have sat through another hour of Latin lessons, with Sister Angelique screaming 'Conjugate, girls! Conjugate!' I think I may have screamed."
"Cosette…" Fauchelevent sighed.
There was that splinter again.
Blocking the path. Right in the middle of her head. Stopping her from joining up her thoughts.
She knew that name. She knew the song that was repeating itself in her thoughts.
But something was stopping her from remembering.
"This…This must be your daughter, I presume." Grace ventured bravely.
"Cosette, say hello to my new acquaintance, Mademoiselle…" he paused for a moment, realising that he didn't know her name.
"Grace. Grace Beaumont."
Cosette curtseyed to her and Grace waited awkwardly for her to stop.
"Are you enjoying Papa's rose garden?" She asked.
"It's beautiful. I really needed the cheering-up and your father seemed to-"
"Sense it? Oh, Papa is like a bloodhound to dreary souls."
Grace snorted a laugh. "And how are you enjoying your Latin? I'm afraid I only really remember my 'veni vidi vici'. Oh and 'Et tu, Brutus?'. That's Latin, isn't it..?"
"Urgh…" Cosette groaned. "Papa wants me to take the habit when I turn eighteen, and I'm afraid I'd rather stick knitting needles in my eyes than translate another gospel."
"The calling to God is a noble life's quest, Cosette." Fauchelevent chided.
"If I never wish to glimpse a world outside these four walls." Cosette mumbled back.
"You've… you've never left this convent?" Grace asked.
Cosette shook her head. "Papa brought us here when I was six or so. I don't… really remember much before that. Apparently we lived somewhere near Montreuil-Sur-Mer-"
"Ancient history, Cosette." Fauchelevent said, flapping his hand dismissively. "I'm sure Mademoiselle Beaumont doesn't want to hear about any of that."
Grace caught something in his voice: An inflection a touch too flippant to be genuine. The way Fauchelevent was avoiding looking at either of them was odd too.
But whenever she came close to a particular thought, her mind jumped back.
Like she'd put her hand down upon a hot stove.
She could just about grasp on to the song without it slipping away. It was so full of hope and youth. A swelling and romantic tune in D major…
"Papa didn't…force you to be my friend, did he?" Cosette asked suddenly.
"Huh?" Grace responded.
"I told Papa that I was lonely since all of my friends aged-out of the convent. He thinks that if I have a friend here I'll want to stay. If he bribed you to come here-"
"Cosette…" the gardener sighed, placing his head in his hands.
"He didn't bribe me." Grace laughed.
"He didn't?" Cosette smiled. "Then you must tell me all about yourself, Grace."
The young girl grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to a nearby stone bench. Grace almost stumbled. Cosette was surprisingly strong.
"You do not sound like a local. Tell me, Grace, where do you hail from?"
"Oh, uhh, Oxford. In England."
"Oh, how exotic!" Cosette exclaimed. "We once had the paa visiting priest from Lyon deliver Mass to the sisters here, but apart from him, I've never met a foreigner. Are you well-travelled, Grace?"
"Umm, I've had a couple of holidays in southern Spain… I travelled around Italy for a while after Uni…There was that week in Cyprus… Oh, and that time we got washed-out in Glencoe…"
She could have carried on, but Cosette's eyes had swelled to the size of saucers.
"Mon dieu…You have seen so much of the world!"
"Blasphemy, Colette…" Fauchelevent chided.
Splinter. Again. Right through her frontal lobe.
"Um…I'm sorry…" Grace began unsurely. "Your name, Cosette. I've heard it before."
Grace paused for a second, thinking over how best to voice this feeling in her mind. Meanwhile, Cosette blinked wordlessly at her.
"I'm not sure why…but I feel…I feel like I know you."
Cosette laughed nervously. Fauchelevent's face seemed to go taut.
"I mean, I don't. I know I don't."
In the silence that followed, there was the sigh of that faraway song.
She felt an itch in her fingers. An urge to play it out on the piano.
Cosette broke the silence first. "Well, perhaps it is God's way of telling us we should be friends."
"Sure. Sure. Let's call it that…" Grace added with a weak smile.
"You must come back to Papa's rose garden. Especially when it is in full-bloom."
"I believe the offer has already been extended." Grace said, glancing up at Fauchelevent.
But Fauchelevent's expression had changed. A darkness clouded his eyes. Grace had to fight down a gasp when she saw it.
"Mademoiselle Grace! There you are!"
Grace spun around and saw Artemida standing at the stone archway to the Church. She held a basket of goods in her arms, as well as a bottle of cognac in the other as she came tottering towards them.
"I looked all around the nave for you, Mademoiselle. And the choir stands! I was just about to search the graveyard when the chaplain said I might want to check in the convent gardens…"
"I'm sorry I worried you." Grace said. "Did you get all of your errands done?"
"I did, but whether I'll be back on time to finish preparing for dinner in a timely manner is another matter!"
Grace turned to Cosette and Fauchelevent with apologetic eyes.
"I better go. But I can come back."
"You better! If you don't, I shall loathe Papa for bringing you here and raising my hopes for a friend for you to simply never return!"
Grace got up and smoothed down her skirts.
"I've been promised a bouquet of pink and yellow." Grace said to Cosette. "I'll be back."
Cosette smiled. Even Fauchelevent's suddenly cold demeanour broke a little when he grinned at her.
Grace and Artemida left the convent gardens, all the time feeling the eyes of the gardener upon them. She turned around just once, catching one last glimpse of the strange man staring suspiciously at her as she left. All the while that distant melody played in her head…
Grace wondered what was wrong with her. This was yet another thing that was unclear and unknown. She felt unsettled and yet somehow strangely comforted by it.
The name of a girl that she couldn't place.
A song that she couldn't put words to.
And a strange feeling inside her that felt like something had begun at last.