“He’s a fine one to talk now,” Madame Prier said. “But it was he who first noticed her health deteriorating. He’s the one who told us she was talking to people who weren’t there. He recognized her delusions before any of us.”
“What exactly happened to Edith?” I asked. “Forgive me if it’s too painful a question.”
She sighed. “I know I ought to be keening and lamenting and mourning,” she said. “But Toinette’s right. At the moment I’m suffering more from guilt than grief.”
“That’s not uncommon when one has had to deal with a chronically ill family member,” Colin said.
“You’re far too reasonable, Monsieur Hargreaves. Edith was difficult from the time she was a little girl. Headstrong and determined. Always getting into trouble. And always with her brother. That’s the way with twins, I’m told. They even had a private language when they were small.”
“It was ridiculous,” Monsieur Prier said. “I wouldn’t tolerate such a thing, of course, and forbade them to use it. But as they grew older, and it was time for Laurent to go to school, Edith grew more and more obstinate. She didn’t want him to go away from home.”
“Did he?” Colin asked.
“Of course he did,” he said. “He studied in Paris and then returned to Rouen. We hoped he would marry, but he never showed even the slightest interest in any eligible girls.”
“What about the ineligible ones?” Cécile asked.
“You are too bad, my friend,” Madame Prier said, laughing.
Monsieur Prier did not share his wife’s amusement. “He has had his share of romantic attachments, but none of them have held his interest for more than a few months. I think there was someone in Paris about whom he was serious, but nothing came of it.”
“She must have left him,” Madame Prier said. “A well and truly broken heart is the only reasonable explanation for him clinging so assiduously to bachelorhood.”
“And what about Edith? Did she want to marry?” I asked.
“No doubt by now you’ve heard all the sordid dealings she had with Jules Vasseur,” Monsieur Prier said. “Terrible man.”
“I have heard a little about him,” I said. “What specifically made him so undesirable?”
“He came from no family—his father was a tradesman.” Madame Prier’s voice slipped to a coarse whisper. “His mother’s people were farmers. Can you imagine? The father was successful enough to send him to school, where he did well, and he eventually managed to become an officer in the Foreign Legion.”
“Admirable enough,” Monsieur Prier said. “But hardly what one wishes for one’s daughter.”
“Admirable how, my dear?” Madame Prier asked. “The Legion is full of thieves and vagabonds. An utter disgrace.”
Monsieur Prier did not respond to his wife.
“Did Vasseur court Edith openly?” Colin asked.
“He did, until I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome in the house.” His voice had taken on a pointed edge, a hint that a nasty temper lurked not far beneath the surface.
“And then?” I asked.
“Then he showed his true colors,” Monsieur Prier said. “He crept around here at night, trying to lure Edith to meet him. He followed her when she went out—she couldn’t call on a friend without him pursuing her.”
“Did she view it that way?” Colin asked.
“At first I think she found it romantic and took it as a sign of his love and devotion, but eventually it became a burden.”
“She was extremely upset,” Madame Prier said. “As you might well imagine.”
“Was she speaking to him through all this?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” Monsieur Prier said. “We’d told her to ignore him.”
“But she did love him, didn’t she?” I tried to imagine how difficult it must have been for Edith to muddle through such a mess. “Didn’t she want to see him?”
“Her pleasant disposition towards him ended when he accosted her at a ball,” Monsieur Prier said.
His wife continued. “She’d been dancing all evening—she was beautiful and high-spirited and much in demand. Vasseur was lurking in the background, watching her, growing more and more jealous as she spun around the dance floor with partner after partner. He cornered her when she’d stepped onto a balcony to get some air. She would never tell us what he said, but she ran inside, crying, begging to be taken home. After that, they never spoke again.”
“Could she have written to him after that?” I asked.
“I suppose it’s possible,” she said. “But she never received any letters from him.”
“How can you be sure?” Cécile asked.
“He wrote four times a week. We burned everything he sent.”
“Did you read the letters?” I asked.
“No,” Madame Prier said. “We didn’t have any interest in what the worthless profligate might say.” I didn’t believe her; surely simple curiosity would have demanded otherwise. Who could have resisted opening them? If nothing else, I thought she would have wanted to ensure Edith wasn’t writing to him—a question answered in an instant if his words were clear responses to her. I could not rely on the veracity of anyone in the Prier family.
“At what point did you notice Edith’s health deteriorating?” Colin asked.
“Soon thereafter. She started sleepwalking—we actually had to lock her in her room,” Monsieur Prier said. “She talked to herself. Or rather, she talked to people who weren’t there—the little girl more often than not.”
“It was beyond alarming,” Madame Prier said. “Before long, her personality was lost entirely, and she shouted at me as if she didn’t know who I was. She’d beg and plead for us to let her out so she could go home. As if she had no idea she was already there.”
“It must have been awful,” Cécile said. “You are strong to have soldiered through so difficult a time.”
“After she fell down the stairs in the middle of the night, Laurent convinced us she was endangering herself,” she said.
“It didn’t require convincing,” Monsieur Prier said. “We couldn’t even determine how she got out of her room.”
“I’m not sure about that,” his wife said. “But at any rate, Laurent had read about Dr. Girard, and contacted him to see if he felt he could help her. He was willing, so my husband took her to him.”
“And you were pleased with the treatment?” Colin asked.
Monsieur Prier shrugged. “You see the outcome was not so great.”
“Were you happy with the conditions in the asylum?” I asked, knowing full well Dr. Girard had said neither of them had visited her there. “Did you feel your daughter was being properly looked after?”
“It was clean and bright and she seemed safe there,” Madame Prier said. “At that point, what more could I hope for?”
“Did you see her often?” Colin asked.
“We went every week at first, then every other week. She wouldn’t talk to us, only sat and looked vacant. So we stopped going more than once a month.”
“When did you last see her?” I asked, wondering who was telling the truth: the doctor or the parents? It seemed unlikely Dr. Girard would lie about such a thing. More reasonable, I thought, to believe the Priers preferred to hide their sins of omission when it came to Edith.
“Two days before she vanished,” Monsieur Prier said.
“What was her mental state?” Colin asked, his voice calm in the extreme.
“Unchanged.”
Madame Prier smiled fetchingly. “This must all be such a bore for you. Please don’t feel that you have to ask questions to make us feel better. We’ll manage. As I said, we’ve already grieved the loss. Edith was never herself after she left this house. I do hope, Monsieur Hargreaves, that you haven’t come here to collect your charming wife and run away again. It’s so nice to have friends around. We must have a party for you.”
