The Flood-Tide (18 page)

‘Then someone should be sent,' Carlisle retorted, 'who could report back to the Government, someone with real powers. I myself would be willing to go, if I were asked. You have family over there, I believe, Sir Allen?' he added.

‘A cousin and a son in the West India squadron,' he said. 'And another cousin, Charles Morland, the botanist, is living in Maryland at present. He is forwarding a project of my own there, in the matter of potatoes—’

But Lord Carlisle was not interested in potatoes. 'They must write to you, of course? You have news of conditions over there tolerably often?' Allen nodded, seeing where he was being led. 'I should be most interested to hear about it from you. We must have a talk. Tomorrow morning, perhaps, in my sitting room? If it would not fatigue you?’

A few moments later, when the Earl had left them to speak to other guests, Chelmsford said to Allen, 'Well, there you have a reason, if you wanted one.'

‘Yes. Charles, is it really to be war? It seems shocking—'

‘He is right about one thing - decisive military action. They must acknowledge our authority, then a liberal settlement can be made. The father punishes the rebellious child first, then placates him.’

Allen nodded. He was thinking of William, and the hazards of naval action. So young, little William, to be exposed to such things! Chelmsford's thoughts had gone in another directions. 'By the way,' he said, 'I had meant to tell you - I have heard from Paris that my Aunt Aliena is dead. She died of a seizure in September.' There was a moment's silence, and then Chelmsford continued, 'She was buried at the convent at Chaillot. It was her wish. She left everything to the grandson, though it was little enough.'

‘The last of her generation,' Allen said. 'I feel as if an age has ended.'

‘Yes,' said Chelmsford. 'She mentioned you in her will,' he added after a moment.

‘Did she?'

‘Yes - she spoke of your kindness, but she had nothing to leave you.'

‘What will become of the young man, I wonder,' Allen mused.

‘I will continue the pension, for his lifetime. He is all Parisian, I am told, so we shall not be troubled with his presence here. He will live in France, and when he dies there will be an end of our dealings with that branch of the family. Oh look, they have asked Flora to play! I am glad - she performs very prettily. Oh, and my son is going to sing with her. Shall we approach? I should like to hear them together.'

‘By all means,' said Allen.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘There now, Meurice,' said Madame de Murphy, throwing open the door of her newly-decorated drawing room, 'does it not look a vast deal better?’

Meurice dutifully stepped into the space left him between his wife and his friend Henri, looked around, and nodded gravely.

‘Indeed, my love, I congratulate you.'

‘You see, Ismène, you should have trusted me from the beginning,' Henri said, gratified. 'All these weeks we have wasted wrangling, and I knew from the beginning that it must be the green, and not the coquelicot.' He did not in the least think the wrangling had been a waste of time: generally, arguments with Ismène ended in bed. But he could hardly admit so much in front of Meurice. All relationships have their etiquette.

‘I still do not believe that the coquelicot would not have done,' Ismène said stubbornly. 'If you had only changed the walls - but however, as it is, I am very pleased with it. It remains to see how my guests like it.'

‘Since your guests all ask Henri's advice on their own decor, they are sure to like it, my dear,' Meurice observed. ‘I wonder you do not start charging for your services, Henri - you could be the richest man in Paris in a year.'

‘Instead of the poorest,' Henri laughed. 'Well, I must be poorer yet before I begin working for a living. Ah, do I see a new publication on your table of iniquity, Madame?' This was what Henri called the low round table upon which the 'controversial' books were laid out for her salons.

‘Oh, do not pick it up,' Madame de Murphy cried. 'I do not wish to hear what
you
have to say about it. You will laugh and make some cutting remark. I did not intend you to see it.'

‘Then you should not have displayed it so prominently,' Henri smiled. 'How could I resist its virgin charms?' He picked up the pamphlet and examined it. 'What is this?
Commonsense?
What a title! When was anything found upon this table either sensible or common? And no author named upon the title page. It is, then, something to be ashamed of?'

‘Everyone knows who wrote it,' Ismène said furiously. ‘It is no secret.'

‘Then why not own it?'

‘It is out of America,' Meurice said abruptly. 'It is supposed to be written by the Adams brothers, and Benjamin Franklin, the leaders of the Congress.'

‘You know of it?' Henri said in surprise.

‘I know of it,' Meurice said quietly. ‘Ismène, you should not have this about the house. It is dangerous nonsense. It is an attack upon the monarchy, and as the wife of a King's officer, you should not countenance such things.'

‘But not our monarchy, Meurice,' Ismène protested earnestly. 'These men attack the King of England, our enemy of old, and say that though there have been a few good kings in England, there have been a far greater number of bad ones.'

‘You have not read it properly, if you think that is all it says. It claims that monarchy itself is evil, and contrary to the laws of nature and the scriptures, and that a republic is the only natural, good and sensible kind of government for mankind.'

‘Well, my friend, you cannot be ignorant of the fact that Madame's salons talk of little else,' Henri said, trying for lightness. 'All their reading of the Latin classics, their adulation of Rome, this Rousseau of theirs—'

‘I know, I know, and I have thought it no harm. They do not really mean it, it is their way of passing the time,' Meurice said. 'But this pamphlet,' he flicked the corner of it with a nail, 'this is a direct incitement to republicanism. Give it to me, Ismène. I must see it destroyed.’

Madame de Murphy pouted, but she did not resist. Meurice let her go her own way, but if ever he did put his foot down, she knew it was useless to resist him. She nodded to Henri, who handed the pamphlet to Meurice.

‘And now I have business to attend to. I congratulate you both on this room - it is charming. Do we expect you for dinner, Henri? I shall be dining at home today.' Meurice added the last as much to Ismène as to Henri, and Henri suddenly felt guilty and sorry that he and Ismène deceived this good man. But of course, he shook away the unwelcome sentiment, they did not deceive him. Meurice knew perfectly well what was going on. Still, just at the moment, that did not make it any better.

‘Then I shall certainly dine, if I am welcome,' he said. ‘Always welcome,' Meurice replied, kissed his wife, and left them.

When he had gone, Madame de Murphy walked about the room for a while, expostulating on the cruelty of having her American pamphlet taken away from her, and the rightness of republicanism, but finding that Henri did not attend her she gradually ceased, and took her seat on the chaise longue before the brightly burning fire, and looked invitingly towards him until he came and sat on a low stool beside her, where she could lean on him and stroke his cheek and give him little kisses. Even this did not rouse him, and he received her caresses absentmindedly, staring into the red heart of the fire. At last he gave a deep sigh, and she said gently, 'You are very much changed, Henri, since your grandmother died. It is six months now—'

‘Five,' he corrected her automatically.

‘Very well, five months, and still you mourn her.'

‘I will mourn her all my life,' Henri said seriously.

‘That is quite proper,' she said, 'but you are grown so quiet, my friend. I used to scold you for your wickedness, but now I am half inclined to wish you less virtuous, for the sake of seeing you more like yourself.'

‘To tell the truth,' Henri said, 'I do not find so much pleasure in my sins, since I have no grandmother to care about my soul.'

‘How that poor, good woman would grieve, if she knew that you were wicked only to vex her. She would not have clung so long to life if she knew that by leaving it she could mend your ways.'

‘Do not jest, Ismène,' Henri said sullenly. 'I am learning that pleasure and pain are the same, when one has no one with whom to share them.'

‘Have you not me?' she reproved him gently. He patted her hand.

‘You are my good friend - but you are not mine alone. Grandmother cared for me and no one else. I have no one person who is all mine, to please and care for and plague and wound.'

‘You need a wife,' Ismène said wisely. 'I have said so before.'

‘So did my grandmother - but who would have me?'

‘Hmm,' Ismène said tactfully. 'Then you need something to occupy you. Why do you not oblige the Prince Ferdinand de Rohan after all, and help him decorate his palace? He has asked so many times.'

‘Because it would mean going to Bordeaux, and I wish to stay in Paris.'

‘But you are not happy in Paris. Perhaps the change would do you good.'

‘I would be even less happy in Bordeaux,' Henri said stubbornly. Ismène pushed him away.

‘Oh, you are impossible. The truth is you are bored, and you will not do anything to shake yourself out of your boredom. You should have something new to think about. Why don't you—’

No, I will not interest myself in your nonsensical philosophies. I had sooner die of boredom in Bordeaux than listen to your puny, effeminate friends whining about freedom and equality, when all they want is for their fathers to give them a bigger allowance.'

‘If you insult my friends, we will surely quarrel,' Ismène said angrily, and Henri considered for a moment provoking her until she flew at him, and then taking her to bed. But even the thought of that palled. He stood up.

‘Then I shall not risk annoying you. I shall leave at once.'

‘But you were to stay to dinner,' Ismène said, taken aback. He had never before refused a quarrel. Henri bowed.

‘Make my excuses to Meurice, I beg you. Your servant, Madame.’

Outside, he dismissed Duncan, saying that he wanted to walk alone, and Duncan, as he always did, accepted his dismissal, and turned for home; but this time he went only round the corner, and followed Henri at a discreet distance. His master was accustomed from time to time to wander about the city, but Duncan did not think it either fitting or safe, and especially now, when he was so obviously not himself.

It was only when he found himself at the mouth of the bridge that Henri suddenly thought of the Cheval Bleu café, and the young lady, Mademoiselle Lobster, he had so admired. He had not been back there, for his wanderings took him rarely across the river, and besides, he had not been in a mood to think of such things since Grandmother died. But now his restlessness and his anger with Ismène made him remember the pleasures of simplicity with nostalgia. His step quickened to a brisk and purposeful tread. In an alley near the café he took off his wig and cravat, and made other small adjustments to his appearance, and felt all the thrill of play-acting as he adopted his role of Monsieur Ecosse, and entered the little café.

His welcome was flatteringly warm. Monsieur Homard came rushing forward as though to greet and old friend.

‘Monsieur Ecosse! What a pleasure, sir, what a great pleasure. We have not seen you in such a long while that I said to Madame Homard we had lost you to the Parnasse or the Mauvais Garcons, and we racked our brains to find what we had done amiss. Come in, come in, m'sieur, and have your old table.’

The café was almost empty - it was early for dinner -and Henri gave a small private smile at the thought of his ‘old' table, when he had only been there once, and wondered if he would even have been recognized if the place had been full. But his heart was warming despite his thoughts, and his eyes went at once to the
caisse,
and there was the beautiful Madeleine, with what was almost a smile upon her lips. Homard's quick eye did not miss the look, but he said nothing, ushering Henri into his seat and brushing the crumbs off the table with his napkin.

‘So tell us why we have not seen you this long while?' he asked. 'You have not, I hope, found anywhere with a better ordinary for eight sous?'

‘No indeed,' Henri said genially, quite prepared to play the game. The table was close to the
caisse,
and Madeleine, he could see by the tilt of her head as she bent over her books again, was listening to the conversation. 'I was sorry to have been unable to come again, but the fact is that I left Paris the very next day - for Bordeaux,' he said in a burst of inspiration. 'My business takes me all over France.'

‘And may one inquire what is your business, m'sieur?' Homard asked with a perfect politeness.

The sleeping devil in Henri was waking up at last, and he answered smoothly, 'The decoration of great houses, Monsieur Homard. I advise the aristocracy on how to decorate and furnish their rooms.' Madeliene's head was up again, and he could feel her eyes fixed on him. 'In Bordeaux I was advising Prince Ferdinand upon his new palace.’

It was amusing to see the surprise and respect dawning in Homard's eyes, and to realize also that he would regard the man who could perform such a special and lucrative service to the nobility far higher than the nobility itself. One could almost see him calculating what a man might charge a prince of the blood for advice of that sort.