King of the Castle (41 page)

My fingers were trembling. I despised myself. I was no better than the servants who would not come here. I was afraid, even as they were, of the ghosts of the past.

“Who’s there?” I cried, in a voice which sounded bold.

It echoed in a ghostly eerie way.

I knew that I must get out at once. It was that instinct warning me.

Now! And don’t come back here alone.

“Is anyone there?” I said. Then again speaking aloud:

“There’s nothing there …”

I didn’t know why I had spoken aloud. It was some answer to the fear which possessed me. It was not a ghost who was lurking in the shadows.

But I had more to fear from the living than the dead.

I backed trying to do so slowly and deliberately to the door. I blew out the lantern and put it down. I was through the iron-studded door; I mounted the stone staircase and once at the top of it hurriedly went to my room.

I must never go there alone again, I told myself. I pictured that door shutting on me. I pictured the peril overtaking me. I was not sure in what form, but I believed that I might then have had my wish to remain at the chateau for ever more.

I had come to a decision. I was going to talk to the Comte without delay.

It was characteristic that at Gaillard the grapes were trodden in the traditional way. In other parts of the country there might be presses, but at Gaillard the old methods were retained.

There are no ways like the old ways,” Armand Bastide had said once.

“No wine tastes quite like ours.”

The warm air was filled with the sounds of revelry. The

grapes were gathered and were three feet deep in the great trough.

The (readers, ready for the treading, had scrubbed their legs and feet until they shone; the musicians were tuning up. The excitement was high.

The scene touched by moonlight was fantastic to me, who had never seen anything like it before. I watched with the rest while the treaders, naked to the thighs, wearing short white breeches, stepped into the trough and began to dance.

I recognized the old song which Jean Pierre had first sung to me, and it had a special significance now:

“Qui sont-ils les gens qui sont riches? Sont-ils plus que moi quin’ ai rien …”

I watched the dancers sink deeper and deeper into the purple morass;

their faces gleaming, their voices raised in song. The music seemed to grow wilder; and the musicians closed in on the trough. Armand Bastide led the players with his violin; there was an accordion, a triangle and a drum, and some of the treaders used castanets as they went methodically round and round the trough.

Brandy was passed round to the dancers and they roared their appreciation as the singing grew louder, the dance more fervent.

I caught a glimpse of Yves and Margot; they with other children were wild with excitement, dancing together, shrieking with laughter as they pretended they were treading grapes.

Genevieve was there, her hair high on her head. She ^ looked excited and secretive and I knew that her restless glances meant that she was looking for Jean Pierre.

And suddenly the Comte was beside me. He was smiling, as though he was pleased, and I felt absurdly happy because I believed that he had been looking for me.

“Dallas,” he said, and the use of my Christian name on his lips filled me with pleasure. Then: “Well, what do you think of it?”

“I have never seen anything like it.”

“I’m glad we have been able to show you something you haven’t seen before.”

He had taken my elbow in the palm of his hand.

“I must speak to you,” I said.

“And I to you. But not here. There is too much noise.”

He drew me away from the crowd. Outside, the air was fresh; I looked at the moon, gibbous, almost drunken-looking, the markings on its surface clear, so that it really did look like a face up there, laughing at us.

“It seems a long time since we have talked together,” he said.

“I

could not make up my mind what to say to you. I wanted to think . about us. I did not want you to think me rash . impetuous. I did not think you would care for that. “

“No,” I replied.

We had started to walk towards the chateau.

“Tell me first what you wished to say,” he said.

“In a few weeks I shall have finished my work. The time will have come for me to go.”

“You must not go.”

“But there will be no reason for me to stay.”

“We must find a reason ..: Dallas.”

I turned to him. It was no time for banter. I must know the truth.

Even if I betrayed my feelings I must know it.

“What reason could there be?”

“That I asked you to stay because I should be unhappy if you left.”

“I think you should tell me exactly what you mean.”

“I mean that I could not let you go away. That I want you to stay here always … to make this place your home. I’m telling you that I love you.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Not yet. There are things we must talk over first.”

33i

“But you have decided not to marry again.”

“There was one woman in the world who could make me change my mind. I didn’t even know she existed, and how was I to guess that chance should send her to me?”

“You are certain?” I asked and I heard the joy in my voice.

He stood still and took my hands in his; he looked solemnly into my face.

“Never more certain in my life.”

“And yet you do not ask me to marry you?”

“My dearest,” he said, “I would not have you waste your life.”

“Should I waste it… if I loved you?”

“Do not say if. Say you do. Let us be completely truthful with each other. Do you love me, Dallas?”

“I know so little of love. I know that if I left here, if I never saw you again, I should be more unhappy than I had ever been in my life.”

He leaned towards me and kissed me gently on the cheek.

“That will do for a start. But how can you feel so … for me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know me for what I am … I want you to. I could not let you marry me unless you really knew me. Have you thought of that, Dallas?”

“I have tried not to think of what seemed to me quite impossible, but secretly I have thought of it.”

“And you thought it impossible?”

“I did not see myself in the role of femme fatale.”

“God forbid.”

“I saw-myself as a woman scarcely young, without any personal charm, but able to take care of herself, one who had put all foolish romantic notions behind her.”

“And you did not know yourself.”

“If I had never come here I should have become that person.”

“If you had never met me … And if I had never met you … ? But we met and what did we do? We began to wipe off the bloom … the mildew you know the terms. And now here we are.

Dallas, I’ll never let you leave me . but you must be sure . “

“I am sure.”

“Remember you have become a little foolish … a little romantic. Why do you love me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t admire my character. You have heard rumours. What if I tell you that a great many of those rumours are true?”

“I did not expect you to be a saint.”

“I have been ruthless … often cruel… I have been unfaithful… promiscuous … selfish … arrogant. What if I should be so again?”

“That I am prepared for. I am, as you know, self-opinionated…. governessy as Genevieve will tell you …”

“Genevieve …” he murmured, and then with a laugh: “I am also prepared.”

His hands were on my shoulders; I felt a rising passion in him and I was responding with all my being. But he was seeking for control; it was as though he was holding off that moment when he would take me in his arms and we should forget all else but the joy of being together at last in reality.

“Dallas,” he said, ‘you must be sure. “

“I am … I am … never more sure …”

“You would take me then?”

“Most willingly.”

“Knowing … what you know.”

“We will start again,” I said.

“The past is done with. What you were or what I was before we met is of no importance. It is what we shall be together.”

“I am not a good man.”

“Who shall say what is goodness?”

“But I have improved since you came.”

“Then I must stay to see that you go on improving.”

“My love,” he said softly, and held me against him, but I did not see his face.

He released me and turned me towards the chateau.

It rose before us, like a fairy castle in the moonlight, the towers seeming to pierce that midnight-blue back cloth of the sky.

I felt like the Princess in a fairy story. I told him so.

“Who lived happy ever after,” I said.

“Do you believe in happy endings?” he asked.

“Not perpetual ecstasy. But I believe it is for us to make our own happiness and I am determined that we shall do that.”

“You will make sure of it for both of us. I’m content. You will always achieve what you set out to do. I think you determined to marry me months ago. Dallas, when our plans are known there will be gossip. Are you prepared for that?”

“I shall not care for gossip.”

“But I do not want you to have illusions.”

“I believe I know the worst. You brought Philippe here because you had decided not to marry. How will he feel?”

“He will go back to his estates in Burgundy and forget he was once to inherit when I died. After all, he might have had a long time to wait, and who knows, when it came to him he might have been too old to care.”

“But his son would have inherited. He might have cared for him.”

“Philippe will never have a son.”

“And his wife? What of her? I have heard that she was your mistress.

It’s true, isn’t it? “

“At one time.”

“And you married her to Philippe who you did not think would have a son so that she could bear yours?”

“I am capable of such a plan. I told you that I am a scoundrel, didn’t I? But I need you to help me overcome my vices. You must never leave me, Dallas.”

“And the child?” I asked.

“What child?”

“Her child … Claude’s child.”

“There is no child.”

“But she has told me that she is to have a child … your child.” “It is not possible,” he said.

“But if she is your mistress?”

“Was, I said, not is. You began to use your influence on me as soon as we met. Since she married Philippe there has been nothing between us.

You look dubious. Does that mean you don’t believe me? “

“I believe you,” I said.

“And … I’m glad. I can see that she wanted me to go. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”

“You will probably hear of other misdeeds now and then.”

“They will all be in the past. It will be the present and future which will be my affair.”

“How I long for the time when my affairs are entirely yours.”

“Could we say that they are from now on … ?”

“You delight me; you enchant me. Who would have believed I could hear such sweetness from your lips?”

“I should not have believed it myself. You have put a spell on me.”

“My darling! But we must settle this. Please… please ask me more questions. You must know the worst now. What else have you heard of me?”

“I thought you were the father of Gabrielle’s child.”

“That was Jacques.”

“I know now. I know too that you were kind to Mademoiselle Dubois. I know that you are good at heart….”

He put an arm round me and as we walked across the

drawbridge he said: “There is one thing you have not mentioned. You do not ask about my marriage.”

“What do you expect me to ask?”

“You must have heard rumours.”

“Yes, I have heard them.”

“Little else was talked of in these parts at the time. I believe half the countryside believed I murdered her. They will think you are a brave woman to marry a man who, so many believed, murdered his wife.”

“Tell me how she died.”

He was silent.

“Please …” I said, ‘please tell me. “

“I can’t tell you.”

“You mean …”

“This is what you must understand, Dallas.”

“You know how she died?”

“It was an overdose of laudanum.”

“How, tell me how?”

“You must never ask me.”

“But I thought we were to be truthful with each other … always.”

“That is why I can’t tell you.”

“Is the answer so bad, then?”

“The answer is bad,” he said.

“I don’t believe you killed her. I won’t believe it.”

“Thank you … thank you, my dear. We must not talk of it again.

Promise me not to. “

“But I must know.”

“It is what I feared. Now you look at me differently. You are uncertain. That is why I did not ask you to marry me. I could not until you had asked that question … and until you had heard my reply.”

“But you have not replied.”

“You have heard all I have to say. Will you marry me?”

“Yes … it is no use anyone’s trying to tell me you’re a murderer. I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it.”

He picked me up in his arms then.

“You’ve given your promise. May you never regret it.”

“You are afraid to tell me….”

He put his lips to mine and the passion burst forth. I was limp clinging to him, bewildered, ecstatic, in my romantic dream.

When he released me he looked sombre.

“There will be gossip to face. There will be those who whisper behind our backs. They will warn you …”

“Let them.”

“It will not be an easy life.”

“It is the life I want.”

“You will have a stepdaughter.”

“Of whom I am already fond.”

“A difficult girl who may become more so.”

“I shall try to be a mother to her.”

“You have done much for her already, but…”

“You seem determined to tell me why I should not marry you. Do you want me to say no?”

“I should never allow you to say no.”

“And what if I did?”

“I should carry you to one of the dungeons and keep you there.”