The Adultress (55 page)

I heard myself say: ‘Is it the same for both of us then?’

‘There are variations, of course, but you are both lucky young ladies. You are going to meet your fate …one of you will meet it today.’

‘Which one?’ asked Lisette.

Madame Rougemont put her hand to her head and closed her eyes.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that we should look into the crystal ball. First the fair lady.’

She drew the crystal towards her and closed her eyes. Then she began to speak in a dreamy voice. ‘I see him. He is tall, dark and handsome. He is close … very close … He will love you dearly. You will ride in carriages. Beware of hesitation. If you do not act promptly you will lose your good fortune, my dear.’ She turned to me. ‘And now you, little lady. Ah, here it is again. The finger of fate. Your future will be decided soon … and it is in your hands. When fate comes to you, you must be ready to grasp it. Again, hesitation could lose all. It may seem sudden but if you do not take advantage of what the gods offer you now you could regret it all your life. I see that your fate is entwined with that of the other lady and that is what makes it difficult for me to speak more openly. Don’t despair. If the turn of one of you is not today, it will be tomorrow.’

I stood up, for every moment I was growing more and more uneasy. There was an oppressiveness about the place which seemed to shut me in.

‘We should be going,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much, Madame Rougemont.’

Lisette stood beside me. I think she was beginning to catch my uneasiness.

Madame Rougemont said: ‘You would like a little refreshment. I never send my clients away without a little hospitality. I have a little salon just across the passage. Come on.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We must go.’

But she held us firmly by our arms.

‘We serve wine here,’ she said. ‘A little wine bar. Ladies and gentlemen like to come in when they are thirsty.’

The girl who had shown us in appeared again; she opened a door and we were more or less pushed into a room in which were little tables and red plush chairs.

A man was sitting in one of them. He looked as though he were tall and he was certainly dark and handsome.

‘Ah, Monsieur St Georges,’ said Madame Rougemont. ‘How nice to see you! I was just going to drink a glass of wine with these two young ladies. Please join us.’

She made a sign and a waiter appeared. She nodded to him and he went away.

Monsieur St Georges bowed and, taking Lisette’s hand and then mine, kissed them and said he was delighted to make our acquaintance.

We all sat down at the table. A good deal of my fear had disappeared. As for Lisette, she was undoubtedly enjoying the adventure.

‘These young ladies are attached to one of the big houses,’ said Madame Rougemont. ‘That’s so, is it not, my dears?’

‘Tell me,’ said the young man. ‘Which one?’

Lisette and I exchanged quick glances. I felt myself flushing. There would be great trouble if it were known that we had come to the fortune-teller. Tante Berthe was always warning Lisette of the dangers of life in Paris. It was the surest way to make Lisette want to sample it.

The silence went on for several seconds. Both of us were trying to think of the name of a rich family for whom we might be working.

Lisette was quicker than I. She said: ‘It is the Hôtel d’Argenson.’

‘That would be in …’ said Monsieur St Georges.

Again that pause and Lisette said: ‘In Courcelles …’

‘In Courcelles! Oh, you have come a long way.’

‘We are fond of walking,’ I said.

‘I see.’

He drank off his glass of wine and I saw him make some sort of sign to Madame Rougemont. She said: ‘I have an appointment with another client.’ She leaned towards Lisette and whispered something which Lisette told me afterwards was: ‘See, here is your dark handsome man.’

He watched her disappear. Then he said sharply: ‘Who are you and what are you doing in a place like this?’

‘What do you mean?’ I cried. ‘A place like this …’

‘Do you mean you don’t know what sort of place it is?
Mon Dieu,
here we have the innocents in Paris. Tell me where your home is. The truth now. You are not serving-girls. Where did you get those clothes?’

‘At the Place de Grève,’ I answered.

I saw a smile touch his lips. ‘And you live …?’

‘In the Rue Saint-Germain.’

‘And at which house?’

‘Is that any concern of yours?’ asked Lisette.

‘Yes, young lady, it is, because I am going to take you back there.’

I felt great relief and gratitude towards him, and I said before Lisette could answer: ‘It is the Hôtel d’Aubigné.’

For a moment he was silent; then he seemed as though he were suppressing laughter.

‘You are a pair of very adventurous young women,’ he said. ‘Come on. You are going home.’

He led us to the door and as we reached it Madame Rougemont appeared. She was smiling blandly.

‘Well, Monsieur St Georges. You are pleased …?’

He said in a low voice: ‘I am taking these ladies home. They belong to one of the great families in France. Good God, woman, have you no sense?’

He was clearly rather angry with her but when he turned to us he was all smiles.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘I am going to take you out to the street. I am going to put you into a.
pot de chambre
which will take you back to the
hotel.
Go straight in at once and never be so foolish again.’

‘Why is it so foolish to have one’s fortune told?’ asked Lisette defiantly.

‘Because frauds tell fortunes. That is not all. Fortune-telling is not the main business of that woman. Something you are too young to understand, but never do it again. If you do, you deserve all you get. Now go back and don’t be such silly little girls again.’

We came out into the street; he hailed the carriage, paid the driver and told him where to take us. He stood back and bowed as we drove away.

We were subdued until we reached the
hôtel.
Then we went up to my room and took off our second-hand dresses. Mine had suddenly become repulsive to me and I wondered who had worn it before.

‘What a strange adventure!’ I said. ‘What was it all about?’

Lisette looked wise. She had guessed, of course.

Madame Rougemont was what was known as a procuress. The fortune-telling was a blind. She had her dark and handsome gentleman waiting as they plied the girls with wine to make them acquiescent.

‘You’re making it up.’

‘No. I see it all clearly now. That girl met her young man because he was waiting for her.’

‘Do you mean that Monsieur St Georges was waiting for us?’

‘He was a noble gentleman. Therefore there were two for him to choose from.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘Not when he realized who we were. Imagine the Comte’s rage if anything had happened to you.’

I stared at her in horror.

Lisette was thoughtful and then she said: ‘I wonder which one of us he would have chosen.’

A grand ball to celebrate Sophie’s betrothal was to be held in the
hôtel
and preparations went on for days. Sophie was in a twitter of excitement and it was wonderful to see her so happy. She was thrilled about the new ball dress which was being made for her. I was to have one too.

‘You realize that this is a very special occasion,’ she said. ‘You will meet Charles and see for yourself how wonderful he is.’

‘I very much look forward to meeting him,’ I said. ‘I think he must be a bit of a miracle-worker.’

‘He is different from everyone else,’ she cried ecstatically.

She and I paid several visits to the Paris dressmaker who was said to be the most fashionable in town. Sophie’s dress was of pale blue with yards of shimmering chiffon in the skirt and a low cut bodice which fitted her firmly and managed to make her look almost slender. Her dumpiness was less noticeable nowadays because of her radiant face. She was really becoming rather pretty. I was to have a similar dress in pink, which the dressmaker said would be a foil to my dark hair.

‘It will be your turn next,’ she said, as she fitted the gown on me.

In spite of the excitement I did notice that Lisette was rather quiet, and I fancied she was getting more resentful than she used to be about not being quite one of us. I sympathized with her, for it did seem to be a little unkind to let her take lessons with us, ride with us, be our constant companion and then on social occasions make it clear that she did not belong.

She went off by herself a good deal and often I looked for her and could not find her. If I had not been so absorbed by the coming ball, I might have thought something odd was happening. She seemed secretive and sometimes appeared to be enjoying a private joke. Usually she would have shared amusing incidents. But, I told myself, perhaps I was imagining again, as I often did.

I was with my mother more during those days for she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the preparations.

‘Your father is very pleased about this match,’ she said. ‘He will be glad to see Sophie settled.’

‘I suppose the Tourvilles are a very distinguished family?’

‘They are not quite Aubigné,’ replied my mother with a certain pride and I suddenly remembered the years she had spent as the wife of Jean-Louis, so far removed, it seemed to me, from the life she led as Madame la Comtesse.

‘I think they are delighted to marry into the family,’ she went on. ‘And as I said, your father is very pleased.’

‘And Sophie is happy.’

‘That’s the best of all and I am so happy about it. She is not an easy girl …and so different from you, Lottie.’

‘I shall not be so easily disposed of.’

She laughed at me. ‘Don’t you think Sophie is very happy to be as you say disposed of?’

‘Sophie is in love.’

‘So will you be one day.’

She spoke earnestly because she knew I was thinking of Dickon and she hated anything to disturb the perfect life she had found with her Count.

‘I will never be again.’

She tried to laugh as though it were a joke; then she put her arms about me and held me against her.

‘My dear, dear child, it is a long time ago. It would have been so wrong to have allowed that to go on. Why, even now you are very young …’

‘The ball might have been for us both … Sophie and me … to celebrate our betrothals.’

‘You are living in a false dream. You would never have been happy with Dickon. It was so ridiculous. He was years older than you and because you were only a child it was easy for him to deceive you. He wanted Eversleigh and as soon as he got it he no longer thought of you.’

‘I think I should have been the best judge of that.’

‘A child of—what was it? twelve. Not quite that. It was preposterous. You should have seen his face when I offered him Eversleigh. He was quite cynical, Lottie.’

‘I knew he wanted Eversleigh.’

‘He wanted only Eversleigh.’

‘It is not true. He wanted me too.’

‘He would have taken you as part of the bargain. Oh, Lottie, it hurts you, but it is better to face facts. It is heartbreaking to discover that someone who professes to love you is lying. But you were only a child … and it is all finished now. You are not really grieving. I have seen you joyously happy. You are just trying to keep it all alive … when you remember to. But it is dead, Lottie; and you know it.’

‘No,’ I contradicted her. ‘What I felt for Dickon will never die.’

But she did not really believe me. Her own experiences had taught her to expect a ‘happy-ever-after’ ending.

At last the great day came. Lisette arrived in my room to see me when I was dressed.

‘You look beautiful, Lottie,’ she told me. ‘You will overshadow the prospective bride.’

‘Oh no. Sophie looks really pretty. Love has worked miracles.’

She seemed rather thoughtful but I confess I was so eager to meet Charles de Tourville that I was not thinking much about Lisette.

At the top of the staircase was the Comte, looking magnificent in his brocade coat, discreetly flashing a few diamonds, and his curled white wig setting off his fine features and his lively dark eyes; my mother, standing beside him in pale lavender looked beautiful and very much the Comtesse. I marvelled at her yet again, remembering the quiet lady of Clavering. And beside her was Sophie, radiant in turquoise blue and happiness.

I was in the charge of Madame de Grenoir, a distant cousin of the Comte’s, who appeared at times like this when she was needed and was only too happy to act as chaperone. I was to sit quietly with her as became my years, and when a gentleman asked me to dance, if he were suitable, I might accept. If he were not, Madame de Grenoir—who was adept at handling such situations, having had much experience of them—would make it clear that I was not available.

Once more I was handicapped by my youth. But at least I had been presented to the King and he had spoken to me, although that was a long time ago and the Comte had made sure that I did not come in the presence of the King again.

Many members of the nobility would be present tonight because they were in Paris for the royal wedding. It was the best possible time to give a ball.

I sat there watching the people arrive. One or two men glanced at me and hesitated and presumably they were unsuitable, for Madame de Grenoir gave them such cold looks that they moved on. I felt again that frustration with my youth and promised myself that I would soon escape from it. In a year I should be considered quite grown up.

Madame de Grenoir was telling me about other balls she had attended and other girls whom she had chaperoned.

I said: ‘You really must be a very experienced practitioner. What an occupation! Chaperone for girls! Not exactly exciting.’

Then it happened and found me quite unprepared.

Sophie was coming towards me and there was a man with her. He was tall and dark and I recognized him at once. I stood up uncertainly. Madame de Grenoir was beside me, laying a hand on my arm.

‘Lottie,’ said Sophie, ‘I want you to meet Charles de Tourville. This is Lottie, Charles, of whom I have told you so much.’

I felt the colour rush into my face, for the man who was taking my hand was none other than Monsieur St Georges, who had rescued Lisette and me from Madame Rougemont.