The Emperor (30 page)

‘
As to pictures, I shall do something to supply the
deficiency, until you can get better,' James said smiling . 'I
should like to paint your house, and you in it, and your
garden. This is a charming room,' he added, looking around him. 'I shall like to think of you sitting here and working on your book! So this is your writing desk — what is it you call it?'

‘
Bonheur-du-jour,'
she told him. 'It was made for Queen
Marie Antoinette, but she never used it; see, here is her
device. Papa bought it for me when I was first married, from a lord who was fleeing to England.' She gave him a mis
chievous smile. 'I must hope he never comes here to visit
me, or he might want to have it back!'

‘Is all this furniture from your house?' James asked.

‘No, only the desk and the
chaise longue.
Those chairs I think came from Versailles: they have the royal cipher on them. And this side-table — look, here, James, amongst the
carving, a salamander, the symbol of King Francis! I think
this table and the mirror may have come from Chambord or Blois. Papa emptied both of them for the revolutionary government.’

She ran her fingers over it appreciatively, and he longed
so badly to touch her that it took all his will to remain still.
He heard himself say, 'It must be pleasant for you to have a little of your home-land with you.’

She looked up. 'Yes,' she said. 'It is better than nothing;
but it makes me very lonely sometimes.' In the silence which
followed, they could both hear some children out in the
lane, playing a counting-game; shrill and tunelessly they chanted the rhyme:

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, she sits in the sun,

 
As fair as a lily, as white as a swan;

 
1 send you five letters, 1 hope you read one.

 
One, two, three ...

‘
I wish I had a child to bring up,' she said. Her eyes were wide, undefended, her sadness brimming to the surface, coming too close to him, hurting. He could not shield
himself against her, or against the unwelcome knowledge
that he added to her unhappiness, that he had done so by
coming here today. Then he saw her take up the burden,
and smile a little, and she said inconsequentially, 'Or a little
dog. I should like to have a little dog, I think, to play with in
the garden. I had a dog in France, you know — did I tell
you?'

‘
Yes,' he said automatically. 'You told me.' He pulled
himself together. 'Well, since you have sent your servants
away, I must try to fill their place. What needs to be done
here? You shall command me, as if I were Stephen. Wait, where is his apron? I must look the part!’

He clowned for her, acting the part of a very inept
servant to make her laugh, though the ineptitude was not all acting. By the time the real servants returned, they had set the study to rights, and Héloïse was shewing him round the
garden. 'I wish I had my sketching-book with me,' James
was saying. 'Let this be a lesson to me, never to go anywhere
without it.’

It was a pleasant day. Peg and Durban between them
prepared a cold nuncheon which James and Héloïse took on
the little white bench which stood with its back to the sun-warmed bricks of the garden wall. The branches of the old wistaria arched above their heads, past their blooming now, but full of acrobatic birds. Marigolds burned fearlessly in the sun, and goldenrod and dropwort, and the multicoloured
snapdragons; but as the sun passed its zenith, they seemed
to cool and fade, and the blue flowers took on vividness,
flax and sea-lavender, and tall spikes of delphiniums in their second blooming.

James and Héloïse sat and talked, looked over the house
and talked, walked about the garden and talked, endlessly,
as if they could never tire. They talked of their separate
childhoods, of Héloïse's life in France, the convent, Lotti,
her marriage, the house in the Rue St Anne; they talked of
London, of the years of her poverty; of Lucy and Chetwyn,
of Charles and Roberta. They talked of food, and music,
and painting; of horses and racing and hunting; of the
changing seasons, of flowers and birds, of gardening of
Easter and Christmas. What they didn't speak about was Mary Ann, the present, and the immediate future.

The sun sank lower, and the conversation faltered; the air
hung very still in the garden, and the birds were all silent, as
if worn out by their day's activity. Héloïse stood up and turned towards the kitchen, and said, 'I think perhaps I had better start preparing dinner. Don't look so worried, James, I am a very good cook. I learned to be when I was living in Brompton.'

‘You cannot do it all alone,' he protested.

‘
But I will not,' she said. 'Peg and Stephen will do the
dull parts, like cleaning vegetables and stirring things. I suppose Durban will help, too.'

‘And I am expected to sit in the parlour and do nothing
while all this activity is going on?' James queried. She
looked wicked.

‘But you are a gentleman, James. That is all you are fit for.'

‘
Very well, my lady,' he said grimly, 'you have issued the
challenge, and I shall take it up.' They went in through the kitchen door. 'Tell me what needs doing, and I shall do it, whatever it is.’

Héloïse caught Durban's eye, and could not resist the
temptation. 'If we are to eat elegantly today,' she said
demurely, 'the silver must be cleaned.’

Durban's lip quivered, and he turned his face away to
hide it.

‘I shall clean it,' James declared superbly.

‘Do you know how?' Héloïse provoked.

‘I cannot believe it is a difficult thing to do,' he retorted. Durban took pity on him.

‘Better let me do it, sir.’

Héloïse's face was too serious as she said, 'Yes, James, perhaps that would be better. I think you would really do it
very ill,' and James rose to the bait. Provided with an apron,
he sat down at one end of the kitchen table with the silver,
the cleaning-powder, and a rag, and proceeded, partly
through ignorance, and partly for fun, to make such a mess that Peg was overcome with laughter and had to sit down
and put her apron over her head; and even the solemn
Stephen let out a guffaw as James held up a knife he claimed was 'Done — to perfection!’

When the preparations were well advanced, Durban took
over with a firm hand, and sent his master and her ladyship
away to wash and change for dinner and to sit in comfort
and take a glass of something while he supervised the
kitchen. James could do no more than wash, and tidy his
hair, which was soon done, and he repaired then to the
parlour, where he found that his excellent man had laid a
fire ready for lighting, lit the candles on the chimney-piece,
and put out a tray of sherry and glasses.

Since James was in morning-clothes, Héloïse did not put
on an evening-gown, but chose instead a simple but pretty
dress of yellow muslin, over which she flung a long-fringed
shawl of embroidered Norwich silk. She brushed out her
long curls, pulled the side hair up into a knot and left the
rest tumbling over her shoulders, and then paused to look at
herself in the mirror. In the fading, fluky light, it was as if
she were looking at a stranger; she noted the bright eyes, the
high colour in the cheeks, the parted lips and the eager expression, and she thought, this is a young and pretty girl, on her way to meet her lover. Then the eyes grew sad, and the lips sighed: she pulled the shawl around her and ran downstairs.

*

The meal was most successful, and James had to acknowledge that Héloïse was a good cook. 'Though I wish there had never been any necessity for you to become one,' he
added. Durban waited at the table with Stephen's assistance,
quietly correcting the latter's mistakes and doing more to
train him in one hour than Héloïse had achieved in a month;
for while Stephen naturally respected her ladyship, he had
never seen before, and was much more in awe of, a genuine,
magnificent, gentleman's valet.

Durban organized everything. When dinner was over, he
ushered his charges into the parlour, trimmed the candles
and lit the fire, as it was growing a little chilly; intercepted Marie when she arrived home full of the day's happenings, sent her into the kitchen, and himself took in the tea-things, so that his master and her ladyship should not be disturbed
 
by a new face or clumsy service.

Later, when the kitchen was tidy, he dismissed the lower
servants for the evening, made up the kitchen fire and sat
over it with Marie. It was a clear night, and though there
was no more than a quarter moon, there would be light
enough to ride home, if need be; but he had taken the
precaution of despatching a boy from Charlock's farm to the
inn to bespeak beds for the night, just in case. Thus, having covered all eventualities, he had nothing to do but await developments, and his master's pleasure.

In the parlour, conversation slowed and faltered as the
fire burned low. Héloïse had no clock, and nothing was further from James's mind than to look at the watch in his fob, but they both knew it was growing late, and that time
was not their friend. Héloïse stood up and walked about the
room a little, touching things absently, and James's eyes
followed her, unwilling to leave her even for an instant. The
fire sputtered and fell in and, glad of something to do,
Héloïse walked over to mend it, her fingers reaching the handle of the poker at the same moment as James's.

Her eyes widened, she tried to withdraw, but James
closed his fingers over hers, and she became very still, like a threatened animal. Slowly, so as not to startle her, he shifted
his grip to her wrist and with his other hand removed the poker from her grasp. Her wide eyes looked down into his,
grave, apprehensive, but without resistance. He slid forward
off his chair onto his knees on the hearthrug, and drew her gently down before him, facing him in the firelight. Their faces were on a level now, only a few inches apart.

He asked nothing, said nothing, watching her eyes,
watching the thoughts and feelings pass through them like fish just under the surface of dark water. She feared, she
questioned, she doubted, she wanted; need and longing,
regret and bitterness were all there, but not, for once, not
resignation. That was his answer, answer enough. He moved
his hands up to her shoulders, and placed his lips lightly against hers.

She shuddered at the touch, resisted for the merest part
of a second, and then yielded, her lips parting, her hands reaching for him. If time passed then, they did not know it.

Later she pushed him gently away, sat back on her heels, and her burning eyes regarded him in the firelight from the
frame of her dishevelled hair. She did not speak, but looked
the question that was as clear to him as if she had shouted it:
What do you want? What are we going to do?
He reached out a hand for her, and she flinched away.
‘My love,' he said. 'My darling.' He reached again, and she let him touch her, tilting her head a little, watching him, questioningly. 'I don't want to go •way,' he said. 'When I came here today, I had no thought of how it would end. I couldn't think about it. But now, it seems madness to go. Everything I value is here.'

‘It would be wrong,' she said painfully.

‘Would it?'

‘You know it would.'

‘
Do I? I don't know. I can't know about that. I only know
that I love you, only you, absolutely, and that without you my life is meaningless. I can't find any reason to go away from you. If you tell me to, I'll go — but, oh, I won't understand it.’

A long time she stared, doubting, and then closing her
eyes, turned her face upwards and cried for help.
Ve
ne
peux
pas! Je ne peux pas decider!’

He grew strong as she weakened. 'My love,' he said, and gathered her in, kissing her brow and eyelids, her ear, her stretched throat; pushing his hands into her hair to turn her head this way and that for kissing, murmuring her name,
feeling the pain and struggle leave her. 'It's all right,' he
said. 'Everything will be all right. Only love me, love me!'

‘I do,' she cried. 'God forgive me, I do.’

He took her hands, lifted her to her feet, drew her to the door of the stairway. The stairs were unlit, and she had to lead him as they went up into blackness. James was glad of the dark: it seemed to offer safety. He followed her without
stumbling, her small, narrow hand warm in his. She opened
the door to her bedchamber, and left him for a moment to
draw back the window-curtains, to let in what light there
was. After the utter darkness, it was enough: everything was
limned in a faint greyish glow.