An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (104 page)

But it was no use trying to tell the Prince that in Aunt Emilie’s presence and Mistral could only suffer in silence, at times feeling so weak that she felt she must faint. It was lack of food, she knew, remembering that she had had no breakfast. It was with relief that she realised that they were nearing the
Chateau d’Horizon
.

It was a huge mansion surrounded by spacious gardens. As the horses turned in at the great wrought iron gates, fountains were playing and there was a riot of colour everywhere, from the deepest shade of crimson to the palest blush rose, from azure blue to purple, from pale yellow to bronze. And besides the flowers the almond blossom was in bloom on hundreds of trees, its shell-pink blossoms silhouetted against the blue sky.

Mistral thought it unbelievably beautiful. But at the same time she could hardly take in anything but the ominous excitement in Aunt Emilie’s bearing as she stepped from the carriage and climbed the marble stairway to the great glass and gilt doors of the Villa.

‘Where is His Imperial Highness?’ the Prince asked, and a grey haired butler led them through several big lofty-ceilinged rooms.

The
Chateau
had a space and a magnificence beyond anything Mistral had ever known in the whole of her life.

Worried and perturbed though she was, she could not help noticing as she passed them the splendour of the tapestries, the exquisite pieces of furniture, the magnificent collection of portraits hanging on the walls. In most of them she detected a resemblance to the Prince, then chid herself for taking an interest in anything save the Prince himself as he followed behind Aunt Emilie.

They were ushered finally into an even more beautiful room than the ones through which they had passed. It had three windows overlooking the sea, and the sun was shining through them, but despite the warmth a huge log fire was burning in an open fireplace. Beside it in a high backed armchair which gave the appearance of a throne was sitting an elderly man.

He glanced up as the butler announced them, then rose to his feet, and Mistral’s first thought was that he was the best looking man she had ever seen in her life, her second that she could trust him absolutely. He was very tall, his hair was turning grey, and it was easy to see from whom the Prince got his good looks. But if anything the Grand Duke was more handsome than his son. His features were classic, clear cut and the very zenith of refinement and good breeding.

He looked what he was, an aristocrat and a man who had both lived his life fully and suffered in the experience. There was something very charming in his smile, something, too, of the philosopher and thinker in the gravity of his eyes as they rested first on his son and then on Emilie.

‘Good morning, Nikolai,’ the Grand Duke said. ‘This is a surprise visit.’

‘I must apologise, Father, for not warning you that it was my intention to call on you this morning,’ Prince Nikolai replied, ‘but I did not know it myself until a few moments ago. May I present
Madame Secret?’

He indicated Emilie with a little gesture of his hand, but she made no movement to curtsey.

‘And
Mademoiselle Fântóme,
this lady’s niece.’

Mistral curtsied, then, as she raised her eyes to the Duke’s face, he put out his hand and took hers.

Mademoiselle Fântóme?’
he said. ‘I think I have heard of
you.
’

‘I have spoken of her, Father,’ the Prince said.

‘Perhaps now you will repeat to your father the proposal that you made to my niece a short time ago in the
Hôtel de Paris,’
Emilie snapped, and her voice was harsh and somehow discordant.

The Prince gave her a glance of dislike, but his voice was calm as he replied,

‘Certainly,
Madame
, I was just about to do so. Father, I have asked
Mademoiselle Fantóme
to honour me by becoming my wife.’

‘Indeed!’ the Grand Duke said. He was still holding Mistral’s hand and now, as he released it, he said quietly, ‘Will you tell me your name,
Mademoiselle
?’

‘It is Mistral, Sir.’

‘And your other name?’ the Duke asked.

Mistral hesitated, then Emilie’s voice interposed,

‘Yes, tell him, tell him the truth, the real truth. I want him to hear it.’

There was something so horrible in the way she spoke that Mistral felt herself tremble, then she looked up into the Grand Duke’s face and felt curiously reassured. He was looking down with calm, friendly eyes. He had not turned his head nor taken any notice of Emilie’s outburst.

‘My name is Mistral Wytham,’ she answered in a low tone.

‘What is your age?’ the Grand Duke asked.

‘I am eighteen,’ Mistral replied.

‘Tell him when you were born,’ Emilie said harshly.

The Duke seemed to straighten his shoulders. He looked across at Emilie.

‘Why was I not told of this before?’ he asked.

Emilie laughed. It was an ugly, discordant sound.

‘You may well ask that question. It was because Alice did not want you to know. It was because she made me promise on her deathbed that I would never tell you. I have not told you now, you have discovered it for yourself, discovered it because your son – yes, your only son, of whom you are so fond wants to marry the daughter of the woman you treated so vilely that she fled back to me for protection. A pretty tangle, isn’t it? And how are you going to solve it, I wonder? Your son is in love, and who is he in love with? With Mistral, the daughter of Alice Wytham, whom you brought here nineteen years ago and whom you despoiled and betrayed for your own vile pleasure.’

There was so much bitterness and spite in Emilie’s passionate declamation that instinctively Mistral turned towards the Prince as if for protection and found him beside her.

He took her hand in his and held it tightly. She clung to him, thankful for his strength. She knew that he was as astonished as she was at what was occurring. Yet neither of them could say anything. They could only cling together, two children lost in a wood of terror and bewilderment.

Only the Grand Duke seemed calm and utterly unperturbed. He looked at Emilie and his voice was stern as he said very quietly,

‘I made enquiries as to what had happened to your sister and I was told that she was dead.’

‘Yes, she died,’ Emilie replied, ‘and you were instrumental in her death. You made enquiries, you say? Yes, you made them eight months after she left you! I took good care that you should not learn then of the child that Alice had left behind, for she left her to me and not to you. The thought of a child might have pleased you, but it was too late then to regret that you had shamefully betrayed an innocent and decent girl.’

‘You are very fond of that word “betrayed”,’ the Duke said quietly. ‘I think we must be talking at cross purposes. I did not betray your sister. Of her own free will she consented to marry me.’

‘She married you?’

Emilie’s question was almost a scream.

‘Yes, she married me,’ the Duke replied. ‘Did you not know that? We were married here in my Private Chapel both by a Priest of my religion and one of Alice’s. The records are there should you wish to inspect them.’

‘Married! I didn’t know! I didn’t guess!’

Emilie’s hand went up to her throat as if she felt something was choking her. The Grand Duke looked at her and his eyes were stern.

‘You should have known your sister better than that,’ he said, ‘but from what I heard of you and from what I have learned now I am afraid that you know no one save yourself. It was you who ruined our marriage, Emilie Riguad. I believe Alice loved me as I loved her, but her love was not greater than her fear of you. You frightened her, and she was too frightened after she married me to write and tell you that we were man and wife. When I suggested it, she grew quite hysterical, telling me that you would be angry, that no one must know, not even your cousins down at the quay. And so we kept it a secret but gradually I found that the poison you had instilled into my wife had gone too deep for me to save her from her own fear and her own misery. You had poisoned her by instilling in her a hatred of men such as you yourself had for every man with whom you came in contact, and she had grown to believe what you had taught her, that all men are evil and bestial.

‘Nothing I could say, nothing I could do, would change her. She shrank from me. Her love for me turned to hatred – a hatred that you had taught her from her very childhood. That was what you had done and that was why she left me, turning away from love and happiness, flying back to you and your hate, which was stronger than anything I could offer. It was you who smashed our marriage, Emilie Riguad, and it was you who killed your sister, not I.’

Emilie gave a strange cry.

‘It isn’t true,’ she shouted. ‘You lie! You are saying this to justify yourself, to escape the revenge I planned for you. I have planned it all these years and I have succeeded in what I have set out to do. I wanted to ruin your life and the life of your son, and that is what I have managed to do now. You won’t forget this moment, you won’t be able to escape from it. You ruined Alice, you killed her, and her daughter – your child and hers – has been brought up and educated by the money obtained from a – ’

‘Be silent!’

The Duke’s voice, clear and authoritative, broke across the ugly word. Even as he spoke something strange happened to Emilie. She seemed to choke, a terrible expression crossed her features, torturing and twisting her face. She put out her hands as if she would grasp something for support, and then, before anyone could reach her, she pitched forward on the floor.

15

Emilie lived for three days, but she never regained consciousness. Jeanne nursed her devotedly and Mistral was at her bedside practically the whole time, but there was nothing either of them could do. She had been put to bed in the
Chateau d’Horizon
and the Grand Duke sent for his own Doctor, but from the very moment he set eyes on Emilie his verdict was decisive and without hope.

‘This lady has had a severe stroke,’ he said, ‘and it is practically impossible for her to live for more than a few days. If by some miracle she does survive, she will be partially paralysed for the rest of her life.’

Mistral, watching Emilie sink deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, felt that this was the most merciful and kindest thing that could happen.

Her face was horribly distorted and it was even difficult to recognise Emilie’s undoubted good looks when one looked at the poor twisted features of the woman who lay oblivious in the bed.

For long hours at a time Mistral sat beside her aunt, and, sitting there, it seemed to her that she herself thought little and felt nothing. It was as if time stood still and she was in a No man’s Land between the past and the future, a kind of vacuum in which she moved and had her being, but in a dazed, bewildered manner which left everything indecisive.

She did not understand that she was suffering from shock and that, because she had been through so much, nothing had the power to hurt her further, that her nerves were sealed off, as it were, from the outer world.

Then on the third day Emilie died.

Mistral had left the darkened bedroom and gone into the sitting room next door because she had been told that the Grand Duke wished to speak to her. The room was bright with sunshine and yet Mistral felt as if she saw it through a grey fog. The Grand Duke was standing by the fireplace and she had just reached his side and her eyes, dark-rimmed with sleeplessness, were raised to his, when suddenly the door was pushed violently open and Jeanne came into the room.

She was crying, the tears running down her withered cheeks.

‘She is dead!’ she said. ‘
Madame
is dead!’

Jeanne looked as if she were about to collapse and Mistral moved swiftly to her side. But the old woman drew herself away, putting out her hands as if to ward her off.

‘Don’t touch me,
Mademoiselle
,’ she commanded. There is something I must say and I must say it now.’

She looked at the Grand Duke as she spoke and he said quietly,

‘Sit down! You have been through a great deal!’

Jeanne shook her head.

‘I will stand, Your Imperial Highness,’ she said obstinately.

Then she began her story. It was as if everything had been bottled up in her for years and now at last it was released, to spurt out in a flood tide of verbosity, being shocking, horrifying, disgusting and infinitely pathetic all at the same time.

She held both the Grand Duke and Mistral spellbound, for they could neither stop her nor do anything else but listen to the tale she unfolded.

She told them how she had served Emilie for nineteen years, but she had known her before that when as children they had gone to school together in Brittany. She spoke of Emilie’s strange nature, of the burning hatred she had of her father and the fierce possessive love she bore her half sister, Alice. She told of Mistral’s birth, the revenge Emilie had planned, which she had nurtured and fed until it became the greatest and most important thing in her whole life. She told them how Emilie had set off for Paris, determined to make enough money to pay Mistral’s school fees, how she had married
Monsieur
Bleuet and sent to Brittany for Jeanne to come and keep his house with her.

And as the tale of those years was unfolded in Jeanne’s weak, tearful voice, Mistral began to see how Emilie’s desire for revenge and retribution had gradually replaced all that was kindly and decent in her nature. It was a definite, positive evil which had poisoned her soul as some deadly poison might have destroyed her body. She had kept on
Monsieur
Bleuet’s notorious establishment because it brought her money and it was money she needed for her vengeance.

She had worked fanatically hard for the same reason, never taking a holiday, never indulging herself in any way –saving, scraping, cheeseparing for the day of her reckoning with the Grand Duke.

At last Jeanne came to the moment when Emilie’s plans had been threatened by Henry Dulton and rather than submit to being blackmailed she had murdered him in the
Hôtel de
Paris.