Mademoiselle Lenfent is Dead
Nicolas felt his knees begin to shake. And as the casket of his
beloved was lowered into that gaping black hole, he collapsed next to the fresh
gravestone, sobbing. He wanted to follow her down, down, and lie with her
forever, under six feet of dirt. He would have done it, really, he would have!
But his legs weren’t working right; he couldn’t stand up to jump. Maybe they
were broken, these legs that had never failed him before. How ironic that they
now cursed him when he needed them most.
This is all his fault, the young
man thought, his lips forming a silent sneer at the very thought of his enemy. Frederick.
He is to blame for the accident—the murder! None of this would have happened if
it weren’t for that small but venomous sentence that arrived in the mail:
‘Frederick is dead.’
The past six months had been difficult for Nicolas Bernard. He had
been reunited with his childhood friend, Marguerite Lenfent, and had fallen in
love with her. He proposed and she joyfully accepted; they had known since they
were children that they were destined to be married. But Nicolas was not her
only admirer.
Frederick lived in one of the many Paris slums, in an alleyway
near the Palais Garnier. Dressed in rags and streaked in soot, he was as
unlikely a friend for Marguerite as a rat was to a queen. Yet one day in the
park near the Rue de Rivoli where Marguerite sat weeping (over nothing in
particular, she said), Frederick listened and comforted her. Everyday after
that they met in the park and shared stories from their two very different
lives.
It was said that he fell in love with her the moment she looked
back at him—although Marguerite denounced this thoroughly, Nicolas knew better.
He had only met the man once, but it was a long enough visit to see that he was
smitten. Frederick was plainly shy; he walked with his hands buried deep in his
pockets and his head parallel to the ground. His dark hair—which looked as if
it had been washed in a horse’s trough—fell in front of his eyes, which were
usually looking downwards (almost as if he knew where he lay on the social
ladder). Usually, that is, except around Marguerite. When he was around her his
eyes never left her face. Perhaps that was what annoyed Nicolas most about him.
They had a small argument, Marguerite and Nicolas, hardly long
enough to be called a fight. But he was apparently persuasive enough that
Marguerite stopped all communication with Frederick. Of course the boy rebelled
against her wishes, but after some more persuading on Nicolas’s behalf, he
relinquished the struggle.
True, the decease of her friendship had weakened her. Her maid had
told him that every night she did not sleep; instead, she skulked around her
flat in the same tragic manner as Lady Macbeth, crying ceaselessly. But during
the day, or at least when she was with him, she always managed to smile through
her tears. Nicolas knew everything would get better, eventually.
Then came that dreadful day. Nicolas dropped her letter the moment
he had read it, and had a carriage race to Marguerite’s home. He found her
blankly at the wall, her face dry and her eyes no longer red. She saw him
standing in her doorway and smiled at him.
"There is no more for you to fear, Nicolas. ‘Frederick is
dead.’ I killed him,"—only then did her lip start to tremble—"and now
I must finish what I started."
"You are not going there, Marguerite. Why would you? To see
what a man looks like when he is dead?"
He was getting angry, but Marguerite remained absolutely resolute.
"I am going with or without your permission, Nicolas. You are not my
husband yet and you have no right to order me. He deserves whatever I can give
him in death that I couldn’t give him in life." She turned her head away
from him and looked out a window. "He had no one, Nicki, no family, not
many friends…he didn’t even have a last name! Now he’s gone and I must take
care of him. What would you have me do, Nicki, let him be buried among horse
manure and vomit? Let him rot in that hole of a house?"
Nicolas said not another thing that entire visit. He simply looked
at her as she continued to stare out the window. Eventually, Marguerite got up
and walked right past him, getting ready to leave. He didn’t stop her as she
put on her cloak and didn’t silence her when she turned to him and said,
"I doubt I will be able to endure anyone’s company for a while. Do not be
concerned if I do not write." With that, she left him.
He didn’t see her for a few days. Every night Nicolas pictured
tending to a rotting carcass in an odorous room. He hated it! Four days after
she had left, he began to get ready to find Frederick’s shack and bring her
back. But as he was leaving, a message was delivered from her. Marguerite
Lenfent was home, it said. She wanted him to come see her at her home, before
she went back.
An hour later, he stormed into her kitchen where she sat eating
lunch. "You are not going back there, Marguerite!"
She looked up at him and smiled, obviously ignoring his outburst.
"Hello, Nicolas. It’s nice to see you too. Did you miss me?"
"Marguerite," he said, sliding into a chair next to
hers, "you have been there for four days! What more could you possibly
have to do?"
"Has it truly been four days?" she laughed.
"Marguerite," Nicolas said, growing angry. "I
refuse to let you go back once again!"
"I’m afraid you have no say in the matter, dear. A carriage
will be here to take me back soon. We could have had more time together except
you took quite a long time getting here. But I suppose that’s just your
way." She turned her head away in an obvious attempt to conceal the
rolling of her eyes.
Nicolas was silent for a moment. Her words had stung him; the
Marguerite he knew would never have been so harsh to him. She was too…timid to
be! Eventually, he spoke again.
"How are the…arrangements…coming?"
"Fine, thank you for asking," she replied. "It has
been difficult. He lived with four other orphans, you know. And he provided for
them. I am helping them find new situations."
"Well, I am sure you will get the Humanitarian of the Year
Award after that. Will I see you soon?"
"I will go back everyday except Wednesdays and Sundays—those
days I will spend with you. Does that suit you?"
Nicolas thought for a moment. "I suppose… And
Frederick?"
"What of Fred? Frederick was taken care of long before I got
there." The doorbell rang then. "That should be the carriage. I must
leave you now, Nicolas. I will see you on Sunday," she said, walking out
of the kitchen, "after Mass."
Three weeks passed in the fashion she had described. Every night
he would receive a letter telling him that she was safely home. And each
Wednesday and Sunday (after Mass) he would take her out for lunch and dinner.
They would spend the day with each other, walking and talking about anything
except Frederick. Whenever he tried to ask what she did in his house she
refused to answer. And when he asked why she always refused, she simply said,
"He didn’t seem to like you, Nicolas. I very much doubt that he would want
you speaking of him now."
Their wedding, also, she would have no say about. "You may
carry on with your plans, Nicki," she told him. "But I am to have no
part in them until everything is settled at the House." Whenever she
referred to what she did during the week, she always said "at the
House," using it as a proper noun, like Heaven or Hell. Yes, a very good
analogy, this House that could be Heaven or Hell, depending on how one saw it.
Nicolas wondered how Marguerite saw it now.
Her attitude was different also. She was still his sweet, little
Marguerite and he still knew she cared for him, but she had taken to mocking
him. When he told her he didn’t like it, that it wasn’t right, she apologized
sincerely but assured him that it was only in fun. Nicolas wasn’t too sure.
Still, she didn’t mock him again after that Sunday.
Then a softer, more affectionate Marguerite rose to the surface.
It was the woman he always knew…but she was different somehow. She was prone to
sudden fits of laughter that would soon melt into crying for lengths of time.
Sometimes he feared that Frederick’s spirit had entered her and drove her mad.
But no, that was impossible…
Then, on Friday of that third week, Nicolas was awoken in the
middle of the night by a servant informing him of an urgent message. He
stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Marguerite’s maid, Annette
sat sobbing. At once he was wide-awake as his heart began to beat fast.
"Annette…what is it?"
"Mademoiselle is… she’s…" The girl tried as hard as she
could to stop her sobs. "A policeman came by… there’s nothing we can do…
Mademoiselle Lenfent is…dead!"
Nicolas felt like he had gotten the wind knocked out of him.
"Dead!" he whispered. "How?"
"The plague! No one knew the house where she was spending all
her time was quarantined! She caught a fever late last night and refused to
leave the infected house!" The girl sobbed once again.
And that was the end. Nicolas went directly to see the police, who
told him nothing more than the maid had. He waited for the Plague to hit him,
or Annette, or someone else close to Marguerite, but thankfully (or
unfortunately, perhaps) it didn’t.
And he had been strong. He hadn’t cried, until today. Today at the
funeral, when they put her in the cold ground. Her small, infected body…
Perhaps that was how Frederick wanted her… It was, after all, all his fault.
The casket was in the ground. One by one, the mourners came to
throw roses into the grave. How many people there were! Family, friends,
admirers…many, many people. But slowly the crowds began to thin as the mourners
left slowly, whispering among themselves.
"Such a tragedy…" one said.
"Did you know that she was pregnant?" a girl said.
"Yes—and it wasn’t her fiancée’s child!"
"I don’t believe that story about the plague," someone
else said. "It was only an excuse for her murder. Nicolas Bernard is a
very jealous man. Imagine! Marguerite Lenfent in the slums of Paris!"
"Isn’t it odd?" another said to her companion.
"Well, most people don’t get to attend their own funerals,
Mademoiselle Lenfent," was the whispered reply.
She turned to him, pulling her black veil down to hide her face
more. "Hush!" she said, a smile playing on her lips.
"Mademoiselle Lenfent is dead. As you are only Frederick so I am only
Marguerite. We do not belong to this world any more, but to our very own. Make
of it what we may!" With that, she took her companion’s arm and the couple
walked off together toward an awaiting carriage.