Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

I tried not to grin, but Mathilde covered her mouth with her hand, Sylvie laughed outright and Jean-Paul smiled as he leafed through the Bible. Now I remembered that he had studied the page with the Tourniers on it for a long time and scribbled something on the back of an envelope. I'd been too tipsy to ask what he was doing.

To Mathilde's disgust and my disappointment, Monsieur Jourdain had not been able to remember exactly who turned in the Bible to him. ‘It's for this that you must keep records!’ she scolded. ‘Important questions, for someone like Ella!’ Monsieur looked suitably hangdoggish and wrote down the names of all the family members listed in the Bible, promising to see if he could find out anything about them, including those with last names other than Tournier.

I was assuming the Bible had come from around Le Pont de Montvert, but I knew it could have been brought from anywhere, with people moving to the area and bringing things with them. When I suggested this, however, Mathilde and Monsieur Jourdain both shook their heads.

‘They would not have brought it to the mairie if they were outsiders,’ Mathilde explained. ‘Only a true Cevenol family would have given it to Monsieur Jourdain. There is a strong sense of history here, and family things like this Bible don't leave the Cévennes.’

‘But families leave. My family left.’

‘That was religion,’ she replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Of course they left then, and many more families after 1685. You know, it's funny that your family left when it did. It was much worse for Cevenol Protestants 100 years later. The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew was a -’ She stopped and shrugged, then waved a hand at Jean-Paul. ‘You explain, Jean-Paul.’ She was wearing a pink leotard and plaid miniskirt.

‘A bourgeois event, more or less,’ he continued smoothly, smiling at her. ‘It destroyed the Protestant nobility. But the Cevenol Huguenots were peasants and the Cévennes too isolated to be threatened. There could have been tensions with the few local Catholics, I suppose. The cathedral in Mende remained Catholic, for example. They could have decided to go terrorize a few Huguenots. What do you think, Mademoiselle?’ he addressed Sylvie. She regarded him with a level gaze, then stuck her legs out, wiggled her toes and said, ‘Look, Maman painted my toenails white!’

Now I turned back to the list of Tourniers and studied it. Here was the family that must have ended up in Moutier: Etienne Tournier, Isabelle du Moulin and their children Jean, Jacob and Marie. According to my cousin's note, Etienne had been on a military list in 1576 and Jean married in 1590. I checked the dates; they made sense. And this Jacob was one of the Jacobs in the long line that ended with my cousin. He should know about this, I thought. I'll write and tell him.

My eye was drawn to writing on the inside cover that no one had noticed before. It was dirty and faint, but I managed to make out ‘Mas de la Baume du Monsieur’. Farm of the Balm of the Gentleman, clumsily translated. I got out the detailed map I'd bought of the area around Le Pont de Montvert and began looking. I searched in concentric rings out from the village for a similar name. After only five minutes I found it, about two kilometres northeast of Le Pont de Montvert. It was a hill just north of the Tarn, half covered with forest. I nodded. Here was something for Jean-Paul.

But he couldn't have seen the name of the farm the night before or he would have pointed it out. What was he talking about when he said he knew something about my family? I stared at the names and dates, but could only find two things unusual about the list: a Tournier had married a Tournier, and one of the Jeans had been born on New Year's Day.

When I arrived at the library the next afternoon with the Bible in a carrier bag, Jean-Paul made a show of presenting me to the other librarian. Once she clapped eyes on the Bible she stopped looking suspicious.

‘Monsieur Piquemal is an expert in old books, in history,’ she said in a singsong voice. ‘That's his domain. But I know more about novels, romance, things like that. The more popular books.’

I sensed a dig at Jean-Paul, but I simply nodded and smiled. Jean-Paul waited for us to finish, then led me to a table in the other room. I opened the Bible while he pulled out his scrap of envelope.

‘So,’ he said expectantly. ‘What did you discover?’

‘Your last name is Piquemal.’

‘So?’

‘ “Bad sting.” Perfect.’ I grinned at him and he frowned.

‘ Pique can also mean lance,’ he muttered.

‘Even better!’

‘So,’ he repeated. ‘What did you find?’

I pointed to the name of the farm on the inside cover, then spread out my map and pinpointed the spot. Jean-Paul nodded. ‘Good,’ he said, scrutinizing the map. ‘No buildings there now, but at least we are sure that the Bible is from the area. What else?’

‘Two Tourniers married each other.’

‘Yes, probably cousins. It was not so uncommon then. What else?’

‘Um, one of them was born on New Year's Day.’

He raised his eyebrows; I wished I hadn't said anything. ‘Anything else?’ he persisted.

‘No.’ He was being irritating again, yet I found it hard to sit next to him and talk as if nothing had happened the other night. His arm was so near mine on the table that I could easily brush against it. This is the closest we're going to get, I thought. This is as far as it goes. Sitting next to him seemed a sad, futile act.

‘You found nothing else interesting?’ Jean-Paul snorted. ‘Bah, American education. You would make a bad detective, Ella Tournier.’ When he saw my face he stopped and looked embarrassed. ‘I'm sorry,’ he said, switching to English as if that would soothe me. ‘You do not like my teasing.’

I shook my head and kept my eyes on the Bible. ‘It's not that. If I didn't want you to tease me I could never talk to you. No, it's just -’ I waved my hand as if to chase the subject away – ‘the other night,’ I explained quietly. ‘It's hard to sit here like this.’

‘Ah.’ We sat side by side, staring at the family list, very aware of each other.

‘Funny,’ I broke the silence. ‘I've just noticed. Etienne and Isabelle married the day before his birthday. May 28th, May 29th.’

‘Yes.’ Jean-Paul tapped a finger lightly against my hand. ‘Yes. That is what I noticed first. Strange. So I asked was it a coincidence? Then I saw how old he was. He had twenty-five the next day after his marriage.’

‘He turned twenty-five.’

‘Yes. Now, among the Huguenots then, when a man turned twenty-five he did not any longer need permission from his parents to marry.’

‘But he was twenty-four when he married, so he must have had their permission.’

‘Yes, but it seemed strange to marry so close to twenty-five. To give anyone doubt about what his parents thought. Then I looked more.’ He gestured at the page. ‘Look at the birth date of their first son.’

‘Yes, New Year's Day, like I said. So what?’

He frowned at me. ‘Look again, Ella Tournier. Use the brain.’

I stared at the page. When I figured out what he meant I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before, me of all people. I began to calculate rapidly, counting back on my fingers.

‘You understand now.’

I nodded, working out the final days, and announced, ‘She would've conceived around April 10th, more or less.’

Jean-Paul looked amused. ‘April 10th, eh? What is all this?’ He pretend-counted on his fingers.

‘Birth is calculated at roughly 266 days from conception. More or less. Gestation varies from woman to woman, of course, and it was probably a little different back then. Different diet, different physique. But in April, anyway. A good seven weeks before they married.’