Rose, Rose Where Are You? Read online

  ROSE, ROSE, WHERE ARE YOU?

  Nicola Thorne

  Publishing History

  First published simultaneously in the USA by Coward Mcann and Geoghegan Inc and in England by Robert Hale Ltd 1978

  Paperback edition by Sundial Publications Ltd 1980

  Large print edition Ulverscroft 1981

  all under the name Rosemary Ellerbeck

  Published under the title The House by the Sea under the pseudonym Nicola Thorne by Severn House Publishers Ltd 2003

  This e book edition revised by the author 2012

  Copyright Rosemary Ellerbeck 1978,1980,1981

  Copyright Nicola Thorne 2003,2012

  ( Nicola Thorne is the pseudonym of Rosemary Ellerbeck)

  For permission to quote from copyrighted material, the author gratefully acknowledges Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. for an excerpt from Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe, translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Ellerbeck, Rosemary.

  Rose, Rose ...where are you?

  I. Title.PZ4.E4455Ro 1978 [PR6055.L46] 823’.9’ISBN 0-610869-8 77-12133

  Praise for Rose, Rose, where are you?

  ‘A captivating French seaside Gothic romance with supernatural overtones … history, spookiness and suspense.’

  Publishers Weekly

  ‘A Gothic romance with a difference; its tension and terrors are far from imaginary. Nicola Thorne gives us a believable, flesh-and-blood heroine, face to face with unbelievable perils which seemingly have no flesh-and-blood foundation. A skillful blend of natural and supernatural menace which should mystify and satisfy her fans.’

  Robert Block author of Psycho

  ‘I’ve always been a pushover for stories about Joan of Arc. Rose, Rose, Where Are you? opened up a new area for me. A tale of Burgundian curses and treasures is told in a new refreshing voice. Clare Trafford, biographer/amateur detective, is as brash in following the many turns and twists of the plot, as she is unorthodox in romance.’

  Cecelia Bartholomew author of Outrun the Dark

  Cover illustration by David Young

  Cover Design by Ruth Wrixton

  Synopsis

  To academic Clare Trafford, working on a biography of Joan and Arc, the charming French coastal town of Port St Pierre, where Joan was briefly imprisoned on her way to her death in Rouen, seems like the perfect place to work and continue her research. It is also remote enough to allow her to sort out her thoughts about her own crumbling marriage to a fellow academic in England. Dominating the town and overlooking the bay is the Chateau des Moulins home of an aristocratic French family, the de Frigecourts, who seem plagued by misfortune. When Clare discovers that the estate is built on the site of Saint Joan’s prison and that the de Frigecourts are direct descendents of the Burgundian dukes who sold Joan to the English, an ancient curse which she had dismissed as legend slowly seems to becoming deadly fact.

  Clare is drawn into the family circle and is intrigued by the similarity of the children’s mysterious governess, Jeanne, to her namesake Joan of Arc. Enchanted by the family and also attracted by the children’s handsome father, Laurent, Clare discovers that her own destiny has become inextricably entangled with the curse of the martyred saint and the family she has befriended. A terrifying sequence of inexplicable events eventually threaten her own life and those around her.

  This story is dedicated to my son Stefan as a memento of the wonderful summer we spent on the Bay of the Somme.

  Authors preface 2012

  Rose,Rose Where Are You? was one of three gothic novels I wrote under a different name, in the mid-seventies, which really marked the start of my career as a full time novelist. I had already had three novels published, but for four years abandoned my career while I ran a small publishing company. Through no fault of mine it ran into difficulties, whereupon I decided to resume my career as a writer and to make, if I could, a profession of it.

  Being nothing if not a pragmatist, I looked around to see what people were reading and alighted with enthusiasm upon the idea of the gothic, which was then very much in vogue. This I have defined elsewhere as ‘a novel of suspense with supernatural overtones’. The other two books, Hammersleigh and Coppitts Green were set in the Yorkshire Dales and preceded Rose, Rose Where Are You? I rather abandoned this genre to concentrate on modern novels dealing with relationships and also many historical (see list of publications). However I revived it briefly with Repossession published in1996 ( and also now an e book).

  Rose, Rose Where are you? was inspired by a holiday in France in 1975 in the French port of Le Crotoy on the Bay of the Somme. I found this place fascinating on account of its beautiful setting, its antiquity and also because Joan of Arc had been briefly imprisoned there on her way to Rouen, where she was burned at the stake in 1431.

  I can’t remember now exactly when I planned the novel because my heroine, Clare Trafford, is a historian and I have always been very interested in history, and was in fact to go on and write a number of historical novels. It could have been an idea that had been germinating since I first stumbled upon the town the previous year.

  I took a pretty house for a month, accompanied by my then young son, Stefan, and two children of a friend who lived in Ostend, plus a rather difficult au pair who was to cause me a lot of grief. So it was a holiday fraught with all kinds of tensions which would probably have made a book in itself.

  However, reference to my diary for the period shows that on the whole it was a fascinating and enjoyable holiday, though very hot, and I made copious notes for a possible novel set in and around the town to which I gave another name – Port St. Pierre – and in particular on a rather striking chateau which stood by the side of the bay. My diary for August 5 for that year records: ‘Began today taking pictures and getting ideas for my book. These two houses on the bay definitely inspire ideas. One is huge, pink-stoned with twin turrets. The other more plain and decrepit but is set among pines. I thought I would set the pink house among the pines.’

  If memory serves me correctly, I later found out that the majestic pink chateau was a holiday home for members of trade unions and have only recently discovered it is now a hotel.

  Every day I would travel round the countryside with my little brood and make notes for my book while the children played around me .Le Crotoy is very tidal and swimming was not always possible. It also has rather unusual and spectacular flood gates which are opened at certain times and which I used to furnish a dramatic climax to the novel.

  The Somme is also of course very well known as the scene for some of the most horrendous battles in both world wars of the last century and my son recalls, somewhat ruefully, my dragging him and his companions around the battlefields of the Somme, the memorials, cemeteries and trenches in the mistaken belief that it would interest the children as much as it interested me.

  Across the bay was the beautiful old town of St. Valery which played an important part in the last war. To this and other places I have given fictional names.

  The story of the book is about Clare Trafford, an academic who takes a house for a year to consider certain personal problems and to write a book about Joan of Arc. She becomes fascinated by the noble family living in the chateau, which has three children, not unlike the little flock that I shepherded about with me. She is particularly intrigued by the mysterious, slightly sinister housekeeper Jeanne who may have been a reincarnation of Joan of Arc, or may not …

  My fascination with the beautiful countryside is evident and, rereading the book after a long time, I am impressed with all
the research I did, not only into the story of Joan of Arc but the ancient dukes of Burgundy, and the legend associated with them which forms an important part of the story.

  Despite the years which have passed since the book was written I still found it surprisingly modern in outlook and altogether quite engrossing … But then I would say that wouldn’t I?

  There follows the original preface to the book which was first published in 1978.

  Nicola Thorne,

  Devon, June 2012

  Author’s Note

  Those who are in any way familiar with the beautiful Bay of the Somme in northern France will immediately be able to identify the towns of Port St Pierre and Port Guillaume, which, in their picturesque settings, face each other across the Bay. They might even think they recognise the chateau, with its striking position high on the cliff.

  They will, however, know that in a work of the imagination an author has to take all kinds of liberties and adapts places to suit his or her purpose; thus the towns exist more in my mind, though I got the idea from reality. So it was with the chateau. There was this beautiful pink house with twin turrets which I admired from the outside. I turned it round and gave it large grounds, and of course I never went inside, except in the imagination.

  Joan of Arc really did lodge in the original chateau in the town I have called Port St Pierre. Now only a tiny little bit of wall remains and a plaque to say that all those centuries ago she was there. She did cross the bay on her way to her death in Rouen, and I dare say it is pretty much now as it was then.

  Finally, although this is not a work of scholarship, I feel I must record my gratitude to Professor Richard Vaughan, whose marvellous series of books on the Valois dukes of Burgundy made me so interested in the subject, though, of course, the de Frigecourt family is pure invention. I consulted a number of works on Joan of Arc but found particularly helpful: St. Joan of Arc by Victoria Sackville-West and Jeanne D’Arc by W. S. Scott.

  N.T.

  In the Tower ...it is as if one lived

  in many centuries simultaneously. The

  place will outlive me, and in its location

  and style it points backwards to things

  of long ago. There is very little about it

  to suggest the present ...It is as if a silent,

  greater family, stretching down the centuries,

  were peopling the house. There I live in my

  second personality and see life in the round,

  as something forever coming into being

  and passing on.

  C. G. Jung Memories, Dreams, Reflections

  Que voici un bon peuple

  Pleut a dieu que je fuisse si heureuse

  Lorsque je finirai mes jours, que je

  puisse estre enterree en ce pays . . .

  Saying attributed to Joan of Arc, 1430

  A LONG TIME BEFORE . .

  The chateau, surrounded by its moat, dominated the walled town which served as a major port for the River Somme. Three towers of the chateau faced the bay, but the windows of the fourth looked in towards the town, and tradition says it is in this tower that Joan of Arc was imprisoned.

  Yet she must have seen the sea, her first view of it by all accounts, and the sight of the beautiful bay would have cheered her in the cold and bleak winter days of her imprisonment.

  From her window, or the slat that served for a window in that cold medieval castle, she could see the great windmill that stood on a promontory high above the bay, its huge sails turning in the constant winds that buffeted the coast. Beyond it set the sun, when there was sun, and at certain angles the sails of the windmill resembled a cross.

  She was there only a month, but during that time she came to love the town and the sight of the windmill. The people of the town were kind to her and became her friends, for she was scarcely out of childhood. Perhaps it was the last happiness she knew before she was sold to her enemies and taken across the bay for the last time. Legend has it that she left a message praising their goodness and saying that when she died it was her wish to be buried among them.

  CHAPTER 1

  I first saw the house when I walked round the bay one afternoon early in September, a few days after I’d arrived in Port St Pierre. It was so breathtaking a sight in the mellow afternoon sun – a hazy gold that made the coastline seem incandescent – that I stopped, aware of my bare feet squelching in the wet sand and the tiny crabs and sea insects scurrying to get out of my way. The tide had just gone out, leaving rivulets and expanses of water and the delightful debris of flotsam and jetsam that made the bay a treasure trove for beachcombers and those who dabbled in the pools searching for the crustacean delicacies which were such a well-known feature of the French coast.

  Yes, it was a blissful sight – the wide expanse of the bay curving out to the Channel and the huge house standing like a sentinel, its slender twin turrets sharply outlined against the azure blue of the sky. It reminded me of a medieval fairy castle perched on the cliff, with a path winding up to it, just as in children’s picture books. It was no grim French donjon, however; it was built of warm pink stone, and there was nothing forbidding about it. The conical roofs of the turrets were grey, and all the windows had grey shutters, open now because the sun was low in the sky. A delicate latticework balcony linked the turrets which sat oddly astride the house, one in the back and one in the front, rather than side by side.

  In contrast, the grand portico was of white stone with Doric columns, and a gracious double staircase splayed like a fan towards the well-kept formal lawn. Set in the wall was a crest, moulded of the pink stone but highlighted here and there in white. It was too far away for me to decipher.

  The garden was formal and heavily wooded; it sloped gently towards the sea wall. The slope enabled one to have a clear view of the magnificent house from the bay, to appreciate the fine details of its architecture, the delicacy of its stonework. It was beautifully proportioned, yet not too regular, with sloping roofs and tiny Gothic spires. It seemed a hybrid of centuries, but mainly eighteenth.

  As the sun sank lower in the sky, the house was suffused with a roseate glow, and I knew I had fallen in love with it. Just at that moment, my reverie was interrupted by a dog barking and the screams of small children. The wide front door burst open, disgorging a large black Labrador and three children who tumbled down the princely staircase and romped about on the lawn. I smiled. It was not make-believe after all, but a normal family home.

  I was about to continue on my walk, smiling with pleasure at the scene I’d witnessed, when a movement in one of the windows of the turret nearest the sea caught my eye. Someone was standing very still just to one side of the window, looking down on the playful scene below, the three children scampering about, teasing the dog with a ball. A shiver went up my spine – the silent watcher seemed so out of place, almost sinister, in the bright sunlit scene. I felt certain it was a woman, as there was something feline about the shape, but it seemed so strange for her to stand there silently staring instead of leaning over the sill and laughing or talking with the bubbly children playing below. Then the watcher revealed herself, stepping right up to the window in order to look more closely at me? Her eyes did seem levelled in my direction. I was unaccountably disturbed and quickly resumed my walk, not caring to look back lest that silent predatory figure should think I was prying.

  The beauty of the bay was lost to me on that carefree afternoon, as I gazed at patterns in the sand, preoccupied by thoughts of the house and its inhabitants. I decided I was overly concerned, and I turned off the beach, pausing to put on my shoes, after dusting my sandy feet with my hands.

  The path from the beach led to the road which I knew would pass the back of the house. I was compelled to follow the road and pleased that I could view the house once again and savour my memory of it when I got home. On either side of the narrow street the small terraced houses clustered together – then the grey turrets were in sight again. I was soon to discover how thes
e dominated the town and formed a landmark for many miles around.

  Great walls lined with trees surrounded the back and sides of the house, almost obscuring it, but the upper portion of the house soared skywards, its beauty enhanced by the filigree shadows made by the trees outlining dark niches and tiny roofs with crenellated edges. The large double gate, wooden backed, had a wooden letter box and a small brass plaque beside it. “Chateau des Moulins,” it said. Windmill House.

  “Chateau des Moulins,” Madame Gilbert said. “Oh la, la, la, la.” And she threw up her hands in her gallic way, gesturing to the sky for all to witness, the hosts of heavenly angels and the rest of them for all one knew. For as I’d found in the few days since I’d arrived in the port, Madame Gilbert couldn’t resist making a drama of everything from a simple enquiry about the plumbing or the rent to more worldly issues. She was lost to the Comedie Francaise, a woman with mobile, expressive features, a gold pince-nez, which I judged an affectation, and a white smock covering her neat black dress. A large gold cameo brooch adorned her throat and a string of glittering beads softened her rather severe appearance. Black stockings and old-fashioned high-heeled black shoes with straps completed her costume.

  Madame ran the Agence Gilbert from her salon – poor Monsieur had passed long ago into the oceans of time – she employed a cheerful young woman, Martine, as her assistant. It was Martine with whom I had spoken about renting a house in Port St Pierre for my sabbatical year.

  There was nothing at all office-like about Madame’s business, but things did get done eventually, and a visit to Madame was an agreeable way to spend part of the day. Her salon had many plants, several glass cases of stuffed animals gazing out with mournful resignation, numerous old family portraits, and a huge roll-top desk at which she did her work.