The Demon Lover (16 page)

“I am interested in the surrounding district. But… I can always go wherever you want me to.”

“Thank you. Don’t wander into any of those narrow winding streets which I believe are somewhere near the cathedral. There is a district where they used to make the dyes … and there are streets where women live … the Street of Prostitutes. Oh dear. Mademoiselle Kate, take care and do not go there. There are thieves who have all sorts of ways of robbing you. You can’t imagine how wicked they can be.”

I assured her that I could.

“So avoid the narrow streets. The Emperor has widened a great many of the roads, but there are still some of those wicked ones remaining.”

“Never fear. When in doubt I take a cab.”

“Are the cockers polite?”

“Moderately. Some of them pretend they cannot understand me. It’s my accent, I suppose. They make me repeat Faubourg Saint-Honore sometimes, and for the life of me I cannot see the difference in the way in which I say it and the way they do.”

“It’s because they know you’re a foreigner and they probably guess that you’re English at that.”

“A double fault,” I said lightly.

“Oh, I have no fear of the cockers.

I like them. In fact they all look alike in their blue coats and white hats. “

“Don’t forget to call at the modiste’s.”

I did call there and it was after that when the strange thing happened and I was plunged into terror.

I went to the shop. Yes, there was good news. The materials had arrived and Madame would give me a note to take to the Princesse describing in detail what they had. They would go ahead with the work as soon as she gave them permission.

I came out of the shop. It was a rather hazy afternoon-hot but not sunny. I looked for a cab. Sometimes I had to walk a little way before I found one, but on this afternoon one was just cruising past as I emerged. The cocker slowed down. I stepped towards him and told him where I wanted to go. There was no pretence this time of not understanding.

I settled down, delighted that my mission to the modiste had at last proved successful. I wondered vaguely why the Princesse did not send for the modiste. Why did she send those messages back and forth? She must be buying lots of hats and gloves for her wedding. I would ask her. I had been so immersed in my own daily adventures, and because of my love of exploration and complete fascination with the Cathedral I had not given much thought to the matter until now. Mane-Claude was a strange girl and was capable of making an adventure out of buying hats.

I looked up. I did not know the street we were in. Perhaps in a moment we would break into one of the familiar boulevards.

We did not. I thought the driver was driving rather fast.

I called out: “Did you hear me correctly? I want to go to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.”

He turned his head slightly and shouted: “A short cut.”

I sat back. A short cut! But where were we?

Five minutes later I started to get seriously alarmed. I called out:

“You are not taking me to the Saint-Honore.”

He did not look round but merely nodded.

Then I thought of Marie-Claude’s warnings. They did like to play tricks on foreigners. He was going to pretend he had not understood my accent and taking me out of my way would demand a large fare.

“Stop!” I cried.

“I want to talk to you.”

But he did not stop. He whipped up the horses and we were now travelling at a great speed and I was getting really frightened. Where was he taking me . and for what purpose?

I looked out of the window. I had never seen this district of Paris before. I believed he was taking me away from the centre of the City.

The palms of my hands were clammy. What did it mean? What could his motive be? Was he going to attack me? I imagined him driving his cab into some dark coach-house. Perhaps he would kill me. What for? I had little jewellery. I did not look exactly rich.

I must do something. We were still in a built-up area and were passing through streets with shops on either side. I must try to attract someone’s attention. I must not allow

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myself to be driven out of the built-up area.

I knocked on the window. No one looked my way. I supposed I could not be heard above the noise of the street.

We had rounded a bend in the road. Ahead of us cabs and carriages were close together. My mysterious cocker had slackened speed. He had to.

There was no help for it.

Now, I said to myself. Now. It could be my only chance.

I opened the door and jumped down into the “oad. Someone shouted at me. It must have been the driver of an oncoming cab. I was quick. I dashed almost under the horse’s nose and I was on the pavement. I started to run and I did not stop running for fully five minutes.

Then I paused and looked about me. I was in a street I did not know, but it was comfortingly crowded with shoppers. Outside a cafe people were sipping coffee or aperitifs. Men and women strolled by and young girls with bandboxes on their arms hurried past me. I looked about for a cab. I should be terrified to get into one again; but I had to. It was absurd to be afraid. They had always been all right before.

People looked at me curiously and looked away, dismissing me no doubt as a tourist, gazing about as she explored the town.

I started to walk and it seemed that I walked for miles, but ‘my sense of direction was good and I knew I was going the right way. I must have walked for nearly an hour when the familiar towers of Notre Dame loomed up in the distance.

I knew where I was then.

I had to take a cab. I could not possibly walk all the way back. There were plenty about now. Would I know my co cher again? What if he had followed me and was waiting to pick me up?

I had to take a chance.

I hailed a cab. My relief was intense. The cocker was a middle-aged man with a big moustache. I asked if he would take me to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.

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“But certainly, Mademoiselle,” he said with a smile, and soon we were rattling along the familiar streets.

With great relief I entered the house. I had emerged from a terrifying adventure . unharmed.

As soon as I was in the house I remembered the note which I had carried for the Princesse. I took off my cloak and went immediately to her room.

“Have you got…” she began. She stopped. Then she went on:

“Mademoiselle Collison … Kate … what has happened? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”

I said: “I have just had a terrifying adventure.”

She clutched the letter in her hand and was already opening it.

“What?” she cried.

She glanced at the letter and her lips curled up at the corners. Then she looked at me waiting.

I said: “I went into the modiste’s shop and when I came out I got into a cab. There seemed nothing unusual about it. The cocker looked like all other cockers in his blue coat and white hat. Then I noticed we weren’t going the right way. I spoke to him. He said it was a short cut. But soon … I knew he was taking me somewhere else …”

“Kate! What for?”

“I’ve no idea. He drove me across the City, and when he knew that I’d realized something was wrong, he started to drive very fast. I knew then that he had been waiting for me … with his cab … It was just outside the modiste’s. He wasn’t going to stop. Thank God we got into a huddle of traffic and I was able to jump out. Otherwise …”

“Otherwise? Oh… what can it mean?”

“I can only think that he was going to rob me … perhaps murder me.”

Oh no! “

“But surely if it was robbery, he would have chosen someone else. There was nothing I had that was worth taking all that trouble for.”

She was looking at the letter in her hand. Then she said slowly: “You had this. That was what it was. It was the Baron. He knows. It is one of his men. He has spies everywhere. He knew. He wanted the letter.”

“Tell me what you mean,” I commanded.

“This letter is nothing about hats. I use the modiste as a sort of paste rest ante

“Who was the letter from?”

She hesitated and then said: “Armand L’Estrange.”

“So you have been carrying on a correspondence with him and I have been your courier?”

She nodded.

“I knew the modiste would help so I arranged with her to take letters from me to him and for him to leave his there to be collected.”

“I see,” I said slowly.

“You don’t see half of it. I’m in love with Armand. That’s what makes everything so much worse. We’re lovers, Kate. Real lovers. I mean we have been with each other as married people.”

“Oh!”

“You’re shocked. You pretend to be so advanced, but you’re shocked. I love Armand and he loves me.”

“Perhaps a marriage can be arranged. It is not too late.”

“The Baron has decided to marry me!”

“It takes two to make a decision.”

“No one would ever let it happen. Armand wouldn’t either. The Baron could ruin him. But that doesn’t prevent our … being together .. when we can arrange it.”

“But you are so young.”

“I’m old enough. I am seventeen. It started before my seventeenth birthday. Don’t think the first time was at the fete champetre.”

I was trying hard to take in what this meant. It was following too closely on that other shock for me to think clearly. I was so sorry for the poor girl lying in the bed. She was truly terrified.

She said, her voice shrill with fear: “He knows. He has discovered. He knew you went to the modiste’s shop to collect the notes and deliver them, so he had you waylaid. You would have been driven somewhere and the note taken from you.”

“It is too wild a scheme.”

“Not for him. Nothing is too wild for him. He would have a watch on me. Perhaps he had heard rumours about me and Armand. People talk and he would have ways of making them talk. He has heard rumours and tracked me down to the modiste’s. That was why you were waylaid. Thank God you escaped. If this letter had fallen into his hands …”

For a while I believed her because I was so shaken by my own experience. I thought of her experimenting with love, for I was sure that was what it was. She was so young; she had lived in such a sheltered fashion; it was cruel to force her into marriage with such a man.

I tried to comfort her, and as I did so I began to see how absurd her conjectures were.

“My dear Princesse,” I said, ‘if he had known there was a note at the modiste’s shop all he had to do was go in and demand it. She wouldn’t have dared hold out against him. “

“No, this is like him. He would abduct you and get the note from you and pretend it was normal robbery. He wouldn’t want me to know he knew. He would be thinking of some terrible revenge for me. He is determined to marry me for my royal blood. That’s what he wants me for the continual childbearing.”

She looked down at the note and kissed it romantically.

“If he knew we had been lovers, think of how furious he would be.”

“That might be said to be a natural emotion.”

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“I’m no virgin.”

“He is hardly that himself. Why don’t you tell him everything that has happened? Tell him you love Armand. Ask him to release you.”

“Are you mad? What would happen to us all? There’d be ruin. The L’Estranges would go crazy. He knows how to take his revenge.”

“Can any man be as bad as we all seem to think he is?”

“One man could. And they want me to marry him!”

“I don’t think you are right about the cab,” I said.

“I think it was probably intended robbery. On the other hand, it might just have been an attempt to get a big fare out of me. The fact that I’m a foreigner would make it so easy for him to say he misunderstood.”

“It was the Baron,” said the Princesse.

“I know.” I went back to my room. I was horribly shaken not only by my experience but by what the Princesse had told me.

Before the next week was out I had finished the portrait. It had been a busy week for me. I took short walks, never going so far that I was not prepared to walk back. I had taken a deep aversion to cabs.

The Princesse brightened up considerably on the days after her confession. She seemed rather pleased with herself, and there was an air of defiance about her. I could detect the loss of innocence which I had come to realize is sometimes apparent in very young girls who have had sexual experience.

I wondered what her future life would be like if she were actually going through with the marriage; and what his reaction would be if he discovered she had taken a lover before marriage.

I did not like to contemplate too deeply. I saw a far from felicitous union. But that was no concern of mine. I was merely the artist who had painted the miniatures of the betrothed pair.

I was recovering from my experience, which seemed less terrifying on contemplation. I certainly did not believe the story of the Baron’s spy and was growing more and more certain that it had been a plan of robbery or mischief. Had I gone on in the cab, I might have been robbed of my possessions and left to find my way back or else paid an excessive fare. Unpleasant, but not so very sinister.

The finished portrait was exquisite. Not such a clever piece of work as that of the Baron, but very charming in appearance. The miniature was to be taken back to Centeville so that the Baron’s jeweller would fit it into its frame.

A letter arrived from the Baron to me. It was written in perfect English, and I wondered if he had written it himself or whether it was the work of his secretary.

My dear Mademoiselle Collison, I am very eager to see the miniature. Madame la Comtesse tells me that it is beautiful. the sort of work I should expect from you. I could send someone down to collect it. I would, however, be so pleased if you would bring it yourself. First I should like to give you my opinion of it, and there is the matter of the account to be settled.

Moreover, I do not like the idea of this precious picture being in any hands that do not understand its value.

You have been so good in the execution of this commission and your work has given me a great deal of pleasure. May I encroach on your goodness to oblige me with this other small service?