The Mezzotint Chapter 3 Harriet Part 2

‘You asked me why she did it Professor.  That, I’m afraid, remains unanswered.  Sam was a bright little thing.  She had very blonde hair and deep blue eyes; popular with her peers, partly because of her lovely French accent coping with learning a new language.  As she got older and taller, one could see that she was developing into a beautiful young lady, but three months before she died everything changed’

His eyes seemed to darken as if a shadow had passed between his memory and its visualisation. 

‘It was gradual, of course: little things.  She used to skip to school; instead she dragged her feet.  Her demeanour – so carefree, became almost reclusive.  She spoke little and ostracised her friends through her taciturnity.  Her parents came to me.  They were Catholic, lapsed or lazy, as I tended to brand those who spurned the opportunity many never get’

Creest, a devout Agnostic, gave him an admonishing glare.  The vicar excused himself: ‘Not in a malicious fashion, you understand’ - The reproachful transformed into the disparaging.  ‘Consider it from my point of view Professor.  Year on year goes by.  The world accelerates driven by all the marvellous technology crafted from the genius of minds given to us by God; the same God left standing back at the starting line, a smoking pistol in his hand and watching his people run away from him’

Creest’s impatience could not be suppressed: ‘The parents, vicar?’

 ‘Oh yes.  The mother, Angelique, was distraught, as one would expect, but it was Philippe, Sam’s father that surprised me most’

‘In what way?’ Creest had regained his interest

‘He never stopped crying.  Months later you could pass him anywhere in the village rambling without any intended purpose sobbing intensely’

 ‘It was his daughter.  I expect if I’d had a child and lost it in such traumatic circumstances, I may have shed quite a few tears, especially it being a girl’

‘Father and daughters?’

‘Well, yes but you do seem reticent to go into detail.  I suppose it’s still painful’

‘I must admit I have never put much stock in time being the great healer.  I don’t think it’s capable of any more than dulling the pain simply by putting distance between us and the original wound; those first awful pains.  Every time something triggers those unwanted memories it’s there, less agonising each time maybe, but it never goes away’

There was another pause, orchestrated by Creest quite deliberately.  Time may be limited in its healing qualities, thought the professor, but it’s an effective enough weapon in the right hands.  Like a salesman pressuring his client into breaking the pregnant pause, so Creest remained silent knowing that if he wanted to pursue the conclusion to this tragedy the Vicar would have to speak first.  A long, bloated minute later, he was obliged.

‘The day of her Birthday…’the vicar said reluctantly, ‘…her mother told me that everything had gone reasonably well.  Sam even seemed to be back to her old self, smiling and joining in the party games – the parents had managed to persuade Sam’s school friends to come along.  I was invited but only managed to arrive just as they were cutting the cake.  Her father was dishing out the slices and saw me come into the room and greeted me with a large slice of Victoria sponge.  Then it happened’

The vicar gulped as if swallowing an apple whole.  This time Creest could not abide the hiatus:  ‘And?’    

 ‘Apparently she smiled at her father who returned the smile, showed him the edge of the knife she had just used to cut the cake then ran it across her throat’   

‘Good God man’ - This time it was Creest who fell quiet.

The vicar continued as if relishing the affect he had imbued on the agnostic.  ‘I’m sure one can imagine the scene quite vividly but believe me to witness such an event was traumatising in the extreme’

‘I was expecting pills, or perhaps a leap from a window, but…’

‘It was beyond awful.  Whether she meant it or not the artery was severed.  I remember, and believe me I remember, looking down at my slice of cake and thinking why would anybody cover it in strawberry sauce?  Around me children were running away screaming or were transfixed to the spot mute in absolute trauma.  Sam’s father had his hands around her neck trying to stem the deluge.  For one insane twinkling I thought he was strangling her.  The tears were raging from his eyes and he was blubbering something indecipherable.  Sam’s mother collapsed.  She lay on the floor like a ghost.  I thought she was dead too’

The vicar paused and breathed sonorously.  Creest dared not prick his bubble.  He pushed him into this, uncomprehending how savagely those events would unfold.  Now he stayed silent for a different motive.

‘You understand now my disinclination to revisit a part of my memory I would rather confine to its deepest recesses’

‘My apologies vicar; I was a tad clamorous’

The vicar smiled painfully.  ‘Do you know that even now, after all this time, I still find it difficult to look at blood, even my own’

Despite a swelling tide of guilt Creest could not contain his curiosity and prompted the vicar once more as tactfully as he could. ‘Did you ever find out why she did it?’

‘No’, the vicar answered. ‘To this day little Samantha’s actions remain a complete mystery’

‘And her parents’

‘They moved back to France, but tragedy travelled with them.  Sam’s father died in mysterious circumstances seven years later’

‘Oh?’ said Creest, expectant more than in surprise. 

‘If anything his demise was stranger than his daughters’ he declaimed, then paused, looked down as if gathering up the threads of his tale from the ground and finally continued.  ‘The Felices were living in a small village in the Auvergne if I remember correctly.  I say village but it closer to what we describe as a hamlet.  They didn’t have another child.  The mother couldn’t bear it, but they had befriended a young married couple, the Lecuyers, living in the next cottage.  They had moved from the city with their daughter who was aged around 8, Harriet I think her name was, with a desire to rear the child up in the gentleness of the French countryside.  The father, Henri, was a psychiatrist, newly qualified, and when he learned the story of the Felice’s recent history he encouraged them to become more involved with their child; a sort of therapy and perhaps his first real ‘casebook’.  

The child, funnily enough, was a blue-eyed blonde as Sam had been but rather than increase the poor man’s heartache he actually warmed to the idea of a closer contact but both women were reticent.  Angelique refused to have the child in her house.  So Philippe became a frequent visitor to his new neighbours.  The child liked to draw and absolutely doted on him and before too long he had become ‘Uncle’ Philippe.  

She would give him simple sketches but seemed to belie a maturity for her age.  Not a prodigy, you understand, nothing that would task your keen eye professor.  In time Juliette, Harriet’s mother, was won around partly because of Philippe’s usefulness as a sitter of sorts, but Angelique remained hostile to their association even to becoming jealous of the attention lavished on Harriet and squandered on her’

Creest sighed unexpectedly.  The vicar, afraid he was boring his audience, apologised but saw that Creest was rather more uncomfortable than indifferent; notwithstanding he felt an obligation to curtail any extraneous detail from the rest of his narrative.

‘One day, in early January I believe, Henri was delayed in getting home.  He had attended a conference in Geneva but there had been an avalanche in that corner of the Alps which blocked both road and rail routes into France forcing him to stay overnight.  Juliette had promised to visit a sick Aunt in Clermont-Ferrard and asked Philippe to look after Harriet.  He was happy to do so and decided to take the child on walk in the nearby woods.  Everything seemed well.  Philippe picked the child up at midday.  The child was dressed warmly against the afternoon chill.  She had a pencil and pad with the plan to sketch some of the winter scenery of the locale and they set off.  Juliette was on her way soon after’

The vicar stopped seeing Creest take a rather large gulp of the port.  ‘Are you okay?’ he enquired

‘Intrigued, I guess’ Creest growled due to the alcohol tickling the back of his throat.

‘Juliette arrived home a little after eight o’clock that evening.  The house was in darkness and outside it was beginning to snow heavily.  She assumed that Harriet was at Philippe’s house waiting to be picked up and decided to fetch the child immediately.  She knocked on the door to be met with terrible screams coming from within.  The door flew open and Juliette, already bracing herself for news of some terrible event, was confronted with the manic face of the Angelique, blanched and soaked with tears’

‘He’d kidnapped the child?’ Crest interrupted

The vicar shook his head and his eyes were querying Creest’s awkward presumption so he ignored the conjecture and continued.  ‘No, no, Angelique was frantic.  Neither Philippe nor the child had been seen since they walked off into the forest, but she had been too afraid to search for them herself, so she persuaded Juliette to accompany her and armed with torches both walked off into that wintry night.’

The vicar paused and outside the sacristy the high scream of a swift punctuated the bubble of silence like a claw hammer smashing a peach. 

‘Wasn’t there a local constable?’ asked Creest

‘A token presence only, semi-retired, after all this was rural France’

‘Please go on Vicar, finish it’ Creest insisted rather desperately.

‘They walked for about 20 minutes through the thick dark wood, light snow flurries eking down through the treetops latching on to their cold, tired, frightened faces.  Eventually they reached a clearing.  As they searched the area, their footsteps crunching fresh snow, Juliette suddenly stopped still and beckoned Angelique to do the same.  In the unnerving quiet a human voice could be heard.  It seemed to Juliette that someone was giggling somewhere close by.   Their torch beams darted and weaved across the open space until Angelique’s caught a small shape about 50 feet away, kneeling at the foot of a large conifer.  Juliette whispered her daughter’s name and began to walk toward the figure.  When they had reached half-way, almost uncannily, the laughter turned out to be whimpering, the whimpering of a child.  Juliette screamed out “Harriet” and ran to her, grabbing her fast as if she were about to fall from a tall building.  Whilst Juliette smothered her daughter in kisses, Angelique was rooted to the spot behind them as if the weather had infiltrated her very bones making movement impossible, with one exception, her eyes, which were gaping up at the tree which towered over them all.  It took Juliette a moment to adjust her own eyes before they could decipher the object hanging from the lower branch some ten feet in the air.  It was Philippe.  Instinctively, not through choice, she shone her torch at his face and revealed to the mute Angelique, bulging eye sockets bursting from his face like two abnormally large hard-boiled eggs.    That was the trigger for the supressed emotion within Philippe’s wife.  Juliette reported that that first scream will live with her forever’

‘Suicide?’ queried Creest

‘The obvious conclusion, the problem being several strange factors surrounding the affair.  The coroner confirmed that Philippe had been dead no longer than two hours and, as the heavier snow had ceased prior to his ‘demise’ and as there was no evidence of any footprints in the clearing bar his and Harriet’s, terra firma so far; however the branch was too high up for Philippe to commit the act from the ground, meaning he would have had to had climbed up there, wrapped the noose around his neck and launched himself off.  Here’s where logic exits and irrationality enters.  The bark of this particular tree was far too wide and smooth for him to attempt a free climb nevertheless there were no scuff marks to indicate Philippe had even tried.  Neither was there an aid visible underneath his poor swinging body, no ladder or stool of sorts, nothing at all.  It was as if he’d been hung there as one would hang a picture’

‘He must have had the child help him unwittingly’ Creest asserted, now feeling uncomfortable with this heightened level of histrionics.

‘The Gendarmerie may have taken this as an explanation but for one fact’ and again the Vicar paused. 

‘Well go on man’ urged the impatient Creest. 

‘Philippe had been emasculated’

Creest leaned back in his chair.

‘The police assumed some madman had attacked Philippe but left the child untouched though traumatised by what she’s seen.  They could not get young Harriet to describe a single thing - she remained silent.  They put out local warnings about keeping doors locked at night but they never solved the murder and eventually closed the case’

Creest conceded but his cynicism toward the sinister elements remained.  Part of him was happy to indulge in the Vicar’s narration, his curiosity perhaps, but there was an itch, nay an irritant, resounding deep in his psyche, that made him shuffle in his armchair.

‘What happened to the mother?’

‘Angelique? She lived for another two years but she became quite mad, deranged even.  She insisted that Harriet had killed Philippe and that she wasn’t mistaken when they first found her that she heard the child laughing, not crying.  She drowned in the local river, apparently attempting some sort of baptismal ceremony and screaming about wanting to be cleansed from her sins’