An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (85 page)

Yet he had his uses. It would have been stupid to dismiss him because of a mere personal prejudice, and she had accepted him, as she had accepted the other employees at
No
.
5,
with a philosophical toleration.

Yet it was the most diabolical ill fortune that Henry Dulton of all people should have turned up at Monte Carlo just at this particular moment. She had never imagined him working anywhere except in Paris, and yet she should have known that where there was wealth and luxury and pickings to be obtained from those who were rich Henry Dulton would be around.

What could she say to him? With a sudden groan Emilie rose to her feet and walked across the sitting room to the window. The brilliant sunshine, the sparkling blue of the sea and the soft movement of the palm trees were a hollow mockery to the dark tumult of her feelings.

‘The little rat!’ Emilie said aloud. ‘I always hated him!’

Even as her words were spat forth on to the soft air, she thought that she might have been speaking of almost any man she had ever met. Yes, she had hated them all with a hatred bred in her from childhood by the ignoble position in which she had been born. That was her father’s fault. She had hated John Wytham, half for her own sake, and half because she was jealous of the undying love her mother bore him.

And after her father with his careless regard for the ties of parenthood she had hated Léon Bleuet, her husband.

Only for a very short while had Léon evoked in her any feeling but one of disgust and dislike. She could recall their first meeting as if it had happened yesterday. She had travelled from Brittany to Paris, and how vividly she could remember that journey!

How strange she must have looked, severely dressed in her best Sunday black, her face grave and resolute as she set out on an almost desperate adventure!

Jacques Riguad, her grandfather, had died but two months after her mother had passed away. It had been suggested by the family that the younger of old Jacques’ sons, although he already had a farm of his own, should help Emilie keep the family estate together. She might continue to live in the farmhouse, but would spend all the hours of daylight in the fields and tending the animals. She could see their heads nodding together as they agreed on this, their work-worn hands almost applauding their own generosity.

But Emilie had already made up her mind as to what she intended to do. She had indeed been making her plans for years, and while to her family they were astounding, to her they had already become common place because she had considered them for so long.

First Mistral was to go to school, not to the kind of cheap establishment which lay within the limits of the Riguad purse, but to an Academy for Young Ladies or to one of the expensive Convents at Lucerne or near Paris.

On this Emilie was determined. She had decided a long while ago that Mistral must be properly educated, decided it when she was walking the motherless baby up and down the kitchen floor. Hidden in a secret place were the pearls which Alice had given into Emilie’s keeping the night before she died.

‘These are for my child,’ Alice said. ‘They are the only things I brought away with me. If the necessity arises, you must sell them. They are very valuable.’

Her eyes had closed wearily when she had finished speaking, she had already been in labour for some hours. Emilie had stared stupidly at the beautiful translucent necklace which Alice placed in her hands.

She had never seen any pearls like them before and she was sure that Alice spoke the truth when she said they were very valuable.

How had Alice kept them hidden from her all these months? She wondered. And she hated with a bitter, burning hatred the man who had changed the happy, talkative girl she had left at Monaco into a miserable, reserved woman. Nothing she could do or say would make Alice talk about what had happened. Emilie had pleaded, commanded, entreated – all without effect.

‘I do not wish to talk about it,’ Alice would repeat over and over again.

And only when Emilie, goaded beyond endurance, had threatened to write to the Grand Duke did she vary the sentence with,

‘You have promised on the Bible, you cannot break your vow! There is nothing you can do.’

No, there was nothing Emilie could do but watch Alice with frustrated, angry eyes.

When Alice died, Emilie had hidden the pearls away and had spoken of them to no one, but from the very first she was determined not to sell them. They became another part of the weapon that she was creating – a weapon which would ultimately avenge both Alice and herself.

The pearls had gone with her to Paris. When she told the Riguad family that she was leaving for the Capital, they were even more astonished than at her decision to give up the farm.

‘Paris!’ they exclaimed. ‘But what will you do? And how will you live? Paris is very expensive.’

‘I shall work,’ Emilie said.

‘But what at?’ they asked. ‘You have only worked here on the farm. There are no farms in Paris.’

‘I shall find something to do,’ Emilie said confidently.

Her confidence was justified, although she did not feel as self assured as she looked when she set off on the long train journey. Yet hidden in the bottom of her black bag was the pearl necklace and she knew that, if all else failed, she could sell it. Not only for herself but for Mistral’s schooling. The fees for the first term at the Convent had already been paid out of the small sum Emilie had realised in selling her share of the farm to her uncles.

But despite her lofty airs with the family, the expenses had shocked Emilie. There were so many extras. In addition to the Convent’s fees Mistral had required new clothes and finally there had been the journey to Lucerne.

Was she fond of the child? Emilie asked herself the question as Mistral clung to her at the final moment of parting, afraid of leaving all that was familiar, afraid of the unknown. She was not sure of the answer. Her love for Alice had been an overwhelming, devouring emotion. She could never recover from the shock of Alice’s deception, her reticence and secrecy and finally her death. Mistral was Alice’s child, she was also a constant reminder of Alice’s betrayal. At times Emilie would hate not Mistral herself, but the fact that she was alive while Alice was dead.

But Mistral must be educated, Mistral must be brought up expensively and luxuriously because Emilie’s plan for the future depended on her having all the social adjuncts to a personal success.

Even while Emilie reassured her own fear of failure and thought of the pearl necklace as security against utter destitution, she resolved with an almost fanatical determination that she would not part with it, however hard it might be to resist the temptation to do so. It was essential to her scheme.

Emilie had reached Paris at six o’clock in the evening. It was growing dusk – the blue, dusky twilight which makes Paris seem very mysterious and exciting, a place of adventure, a place of love, of soft music and of happiness. But Emilie saw none of these things. As she stepped out of the train, she felt cold, dirty and frightened. She had reached Paris, it was true, but she was alone in a strange city in which she had not even one friend. She stood forlornly in the station, her face white and drawn against the black crêpe of her unfashionable bonnet.

It was then that Léon spoke to her. She started and looked round to see an elderly man with a little pointed beard that was turning grey and dark eyes which seemed to Emilie to be comfortingly friendly.

‘Can I be of assistance,
Mademoiselle
?’

‘No, thank you,
Monsieur
.’

‘The friends who were meeting you have perhaps been delayed?’

‘I am not being met.’

‘No? Then
Mademoiselle
is well conversant with Paris?’

‘No.’

But – but – it is dangerous for a young women to arrive so late. You will perhaps permit me to direct you to where you are staying.’

‘I have no idea where that is.’

Léon’s sympathetic ejaculation was pleasant to hear. Emilie did not know then, but she learned later that it was part of his business routine for him to speak to unattached young women on railway stations, and that in the dim light he had been deceived into thinking her far younger than she was. But, having begun the conversation, he continued it. She told him the truth, that she had come from Brittany in search of work.

‘Can you cook?’ he asked.

‘By farm standards well,’ she replied. ‘By Paris standards doubtless excruciatingly.’

He had liked the dry note of humour in her voice.

By a stroke of extraordinary good fortune I can offer you employment,’ he said, ‘for I myself am looking for a housekeeper.’

Afterwards Emilie had realised that it said much for Léon’s personality and the confidence that he invariably evoked in his victims that she had no qualms at all about leaving the station with him and driving to his house.

It was a fortnight before she discovered that her duties as housekeeper involved a more personal relationship with her employer, and it was a long time after that before she discovered how exceptional indeed was the interest Léon took in her.

Frenchmen seldom mix business and pleasure, and as Léon’s business concerned only women and the possibilities of their attractions, he was to all intents and purposes inoculated against the wiles of feminine charm. But, as Emilie was to learn slowly and painfully in the years ahead, a man’s physical temperament is often a tortuous thing with unexpected twists and turns where one least expects them.

Léon Bleuet, whose sole interest was in catering for the amusement and pleasure of other men, was seldom pleased or amused himself. He had a strong feminine streak in him, in strange contrast to his appearance of bluff geniality which was accentuated by his being stout.

He enjoyed being bullied and ordered about by a woman, the sharp edge of her tongue was more enticing to him than honeyed words.

To him a woman was most captivating when her eyes were dark and flashing with anger, her voice raised, her whole body tense with antagonism.

Emilie could hardly believe the truth when she first discovered that Léon was attracted to her by her very brusqueness and by the aloof disdain with which she treated him almost from the moment she first entered his employment.

Her gratitude towards him at having offered her both shelter and employment on the night she arrived in Paris lasted for but a very short period – indeed only until she discovered how inefficiently his house had been kept and how uncomfortable a succession of ill-chosen servants had made him.

The place was dirty to begin with, and if there was one thing that Marie Riguad had taught her daughter almost from the moment she could toddle, it was to keep a house clean. Emilie scrubbed and polished, washed and brushed until the place shone and the atmosphere was impregnated with the fresh fragrance of soap and beeswax.

While she worked, Emilie found her respect for her employer vanishing with the dirt she threw away. He might look prosperous, she thought, but he could not be much of a businessman to let his home get into this state. Used to speaking her mind, she said what she thought when Léon Bleuet returned for his midday meal, and soon she found herself giving him what she called a ‘talking to’ every time he was at home.

Surprisingly he made no attempt to stop her, in fact he seemed to enjoy her caustic comments, to delight in her barely concealed dislike, and he sought her society more and more.

When she first arrived, he was invariably out for dinner, but soon he began to dine at home, having his meal at an early hour because he said it was essential for him to be at his place of business not later than seven o’clock.

Emilie was not particularly curious as to what he did. So long as he paid her, she was not interested as to where the money came from or how it had been earned. When he told her the truth, she accepted the information with a shrug of her shoulders. It neither astounded her nor horrified her. While there were men in the world their tastes must be catered for, she supposed, although it did nothing to enhance her already very low opinion of the male sex.

Léon’s proposals which concerned herself came into a very different category.

‘It is no use you talking to me like that,’ she said. ‘I have got no use for men. I hate them! My father was an English nobleman and a lot of good he did my mother. I have never met a man I would give a snap of my fingers for, and I have been brought up to be respectable. I don’t intend to be anything else, and if that’s what you want, then I had better be looking for other employment.’

To her astonishment Léon Bleuet asked her to marry him. She was too astonished to blurt out an instantaneous refusal, and while she hesitated, he told her something which made her hesitate still further before giving him a definite answer. What he revealed in that moment was what he was worth.

She had not thought of him until then as a rich man, but even though he was by no means wealthy by some standards, to Emilie the value he placed on the various establishments he owned and the considerable sum to his credit at the bank seemed astronomical. His income for a week exceeded the sum they had managed to live on for a year at the farm in Brittany.

Emilie hesitated and was lost. She married Léon Bleuet – married him because he could pay Mistral’s school fees. Marriage she reckoned would enable her to live in comfort until the girl was grown up and would make it possible for her to save at the same time. Léon was not a young man. When he died, she would be a widow with a considerable fortune.

But there he had lied to her. The first part of the contract was fulfilled to the letter. Mistral’s school fees were paid and Emilie lived in comfort, but when Léon Bleuet died, she discovered that the bulk of his money had been left to his nephew, a young man for whom he had a deep affection, while she had been left only their house in Paris and the property at 5
Rue de Roi.

Emilie could never decide whether the latter legacy had been a joke on the part of Léon or whether he intended it to make up for his deficiencies in other ways. He had considered it the best and most paying of the houses he owned, and it was of all his interests his favourite.