Many years ago, there was an elderly gentleman who lived along with his invalid 20 year old daughter Marie, in the Vercors region of France, near the Swiss Alps. Comte d'Epinay was impoverished, due to the death of so many relatives by Madame Guillotine, and the taxation upon those of the aristocracy who managed to keep their heads.
For a while, Comte d'Epinay was addressed as "Citizen d'Epinay", but the country folk reverted to M d'Epinay, and an uneasy peace existed. M d'Epinay lived without the luxuries of his youth in a decaying house, too small to be considered a chateau and too large for economy. The roofs leaked, the fireplaces could benefit from a good cleaning, but beyond a shotgun blast up the chimneys every few years, there was little improvement in the draw. The tiles tumbled off the roofs with the Mistral, which swept down the Alps and did much damage. It was locally held that anyone who went mad with the sounds of the wind would be pardoned of their crimes.
The household staff had dwindled to a housekeeper and a steward, M and Mme Pennay, leftovers from the ancien re'gime along with Mme Fournard, who was the governess for Marie d'Epiney. Social visits had diminished in the early years after the Terror, even this far removed from Paris. Gone were the parties and fetes of M d'Epinay's early marriage, and gone was his wife. She had grown feeble with each packet of news from the capitol, and finally one morning, was found stiff and cold in her bed. It was said Madame had died of grief for her beloved France. The locals thought otherwise, but as isolated people do, they believed evil had blown down from the mountains and played a hand in all misfortunes in the countryside.
This part of France was prey to all kinds of superstition and haunts. If a cow stopped giving her rich milk and gave a watery stream, it was the hand of a witch. If a flock of chickens started eating their eggs, it was because a malevolent spirit haunted a farmer's house.
The spring came early and with it the rains. Each day, Marie d'Epinay would limp her way around the bedroom, and holding onto the chairs and sofa, she would make her way slowly to the big window that gave her the outside world. Mlle d'Epinay's governess had grown to be a companion, for her charge was now in her twenties. Mme Fournard was herself almost elderly, a woman whose life had passed her by in the service of the d'Epinay child.
" Marie!" Mme Fournard had come into the room and saw her charge leaning on the windowsill, staring out at the pouring rain. "Marie, come away from the window, ma cherie. The cold from this rain will make you sick."
Marie's usual thought passed across her mind when Mme started her scolding. "How much sicker will I become before death takes me away?" But this of course she did not impart to her governess. Mme Fournard was deeply religious, or superstitious, and to Marie's thinking, there was little difference. Perhaps it was the loneliness of her days spent in dank rooms with a book in hand that created such cynicism in Mlle.
One late afternoon, in a heavy downpour, there was a long knocking at the door. The housekeeper, grumbling at the impatience of the knocker, hurried to answer. A man was standing there on the steps with water running off his hat, and in his arms a bundle. Without a word, the man entered. The housekeeper, of course, would not deny him entrance in such weather.
"Thank you, Madame. We have been traveling from the east and our carriage has overturned on the road. Mlle Duchamp has been injured and your house was the only one I could see in this rain. Please forgive the intrusion."
The knocking drew the household, M d'Epinay amongst them. "Mme Fournard, please help Mme Pennay, take this young woman to a bed." M d'Epinay was a gracious soul. His own lack of fortune would never turn his heart cold to the distressed.
