The Heiress (14 page)

‘Are you by any chance jeering at me, my dear?' he asked her. ‘Or is this some joke in your peculiarly bad taste? Do tell me, before I do something you might regret.…'

‘I'm not jeering,' Louise said. ‘I'm telling you the truth. I've hinted at it often enough and you never took any notice. It's the talk of Versailles; he's been dancing attendance on her for weeks and she's taken him into the Hôtel to live with her; she calls him her agent! Everyone is convulsed at the effrontery of it. I'm sorry if you're angry with me, but I really thought you knew what was common knowledge everywhere.'

‘Well, I'm going to surprise you. I didn't!'

He made no move towards her; it was impossible to tell what he was going to say or do. But she, who knew him so well, sensed the intensity of his anger as if it were lightning that flickered and darted in the coach. After a moment he pulled on the string in the roof and the panel slid back; the second coachman's head appeared above them.

‘Stop the coach!' Charles snapped. The coach pulled up, the horses stamping a little in their harness. He turned to Louise. ‘Get out,' he said.

‘What! What do you mean, get out?'

‘I mean that I'm going to Paris and I haven't time to waste taking you back to the Palace. You must pay the penalty of your unpleasant tongue. A walk will do you good. Get out.'

‘It's nearly a quarter of a mile,' Louise protested. ‘Charles, you know I can't walk … my shoes will be ruined. If I'm seen I'll be a laughing stock! Please, I beg of you, let me come with you if you won't take me back!'

‘If you're a laughing stock then you'll be keeping company with me, if what you've said is true. I'm not prepared to argue with you. Open that door and get out before I throw you into the road.'

He leant forward and flung the carriage door wide. One of the postilions sprang down, and after a moment's hesitation Louise gave the man her hand and climbed out. She stood in the road looking up at Charles; her face was terribly pale and her mouth trembled.

‘I will never forgive you for this,' she said.

He pulled the door shut and shouted up through the roof panel.

‘Drive on! Take the Paris road and hurry!'

The porter at the gates of the Hôtel de Bernard was half asleep when the carriage drew up in front of them, and the postilion jumped down and pulled on the bell-rope. Grumbling, the porter came out of his shelter, demanding to know who asked entry at such a late hour. It was past two o'clock and his mistress had only just returned. He had been told to close the gates for the night.

‘Open up, you old fool!' the postilion shouted. ‘Your master, Monsieur Macdonald, is outside! He'll have your hide if you keep him waiting!'

‘I serve the Marquise,' the old man retorted. ‘Macdonald means nothing to me!' But he opened the gates, still grumbling loudly, and then sprang back as the carriage swept through, almost knocking him to the ground. At the door of the Hôtel the same scene was repeated; after some delay a sleepy footman let them in, and Charles stood in his wife's house for the first time. He gave one swift glance round him, and then turned to the footman.

‘Where will I find Madame at this time?'

‘Upstairs, Monsieur, in her boudoir. She ordered us to shut the house for the night.'

‘Take me there,' Charles said. ‘But open your mouth to announce me or make any commotion and I'll run you through on the spot!'

He followed the footman up the wide staircase; the house was very quiet. At a door on the first landing the man paused. ‘Wait by the head of the stairs,' Charles ordered. ‘I may need you again.'

He turned the handle of the door very quietly and then flung it open so hard that it crashed against the wall. He stepped forward into the little yellow and white boudoir; it was empty. The next moment a door at the far end of it opened, and he saw Anne standing in her nightdress, staring at him and turning very pale.

‘Charles! What ever is wrong?… You terrified me!'

‘I wanted to surprise you,' he said softly. ‘And I have a feeling I've succeeded. We'll shut this door, shall we, and open that one a little wider … You were in bed, I see?'

‘I was.' She came out into the boudoir, and he walked past her and into her bedroom. It was empty, and one glance assured him that Anne had been alone. The pillows were arranged for one person; there was not a sign of disorder in the room, not a suggestion that any male had ever crossed the doorway. He did not trouble to open cupboards or show his suspicions because he knew for certain that they were baseless.

‘Would you please tell me what you are looking for, and why you burst into my room at this hour like a thief?'

‘Don't take that impudent tone with me,' he snapped. ‘I came here to talk to you. Sit down!'

‘You came to search my room,' Anne said coldly. She was beginning to feel furiously angry.

‘Isn't that a husband's privilege when his wife's reputation is in question?' he demanded.

‘Wouldn't it occur to a husband to defend her?' Anne countered, ‘instead of believing she was guilty! And who did you expect to find with me tonight? Who have you ever found at Versailles when you came upon me unexpectedly? How dare you insult me like this? This is my house, and I ask you to leave it immediately!'

‘How inhospitable you've become,' he mocked. He sat down on one of her little fragile chairs, balancing backwards on two legs. He watched her with a thin smile.

‘People are gossiping about you and that mercenary,' he said suddenly. ‘They're saying you're his mistress. He's employed by you, isn't he, my dear … a single man, a gentleman too, and living with you in this splendid Hôtel. Hardly wise, hardly the way a respectable woman of position should compromise her husband's name, is it?'

‘It is perfectly innocent,' Anne insisted. ‘I befriended Francis because he had no one to help him; and I had no husband to help me! He's my agent, but he's not my lover! Now will you please go?'

‘Francis,' Charles mimicked her. ‘How very intimate you two must be—tell me, does he call you by your Christian name?'

‘Yes, he does,' she retorted. ‘But not in public. We're friends, Charles, that's all. I'm lonely; I haven't seen you for the past month!' She stood up and turned away from him; she was very close to weeping.

‘If I
had
betrayed you, you couldn't have blamed me,' she said. When he moved, he moved very quickly and with little sound. He was beside her in a moment, and he caught her by the wrist.

‘Don't ever try me,' he said. ‘You're my wife, you're a Macdonald now. If you smirch my honour and my name I'll kill you, and I'll kill your lover first, in front of you.'

She turned so that she faced him and she looked quite calmly into the dark, angry face above her.

‘“If you don't interfere with me I shan't interfere with you, you can live as you please,” you said that to me before we were married, do you remember, Charles? What's become of that promise now?'

‘I've changed my mind,' he said. ‘You will do what I tell you, my dear Anne, and what befits my wife. You did insist upon becoming it, you know,' he added. ‘Now you must pay the penalty. No more acts of friendship to penniless young men, no more flouting the conventions and causing scandal.

‘I don't believe you've been unfaithful; only stupid and naïve. You're still a country simpleton. How much money have you given this adventurer?' She tried to draw away from him, but his fingers closed tightly over her arm again.

‘The wages agreed for his services and not a penny more! If you knew Francis O'Neil you wouldn't ask that question.'

‘Ah, then he's a man of principle, a nobleman too proud to take favours from a woman … Really, what a little fool you are! Do you know how these mercenaries live? Do you know anything about this gallant gentleman with whom you've compromised yourself and made a laughing stock of me?'

‘Mercenaries fight for pay,' Anne answered. ‘There's no disgrace in that!'

‘The pay isn't what attracts them,' Charles said. ‘It's the sacking of captured towns, the loot and rapine after a victory—that's what draws them, like wolves from every corner of the world! How many women and children has this money soldier murdered? Did you ever ask him?'

‘What do you care what he's done,' Anne countered. ‘Your honour is safe, that's all that matters to you! If I consorted with thieves and trollops what difference would that make to you?'

‘You do consort with them,' he laughed unpleasantly. ‘What else abounds at Versailles, hiding under noble names and the King's patronage? That brings me to another point. I hear my mother presented you to the Dubarry. I must speak to her about it. I object to my wife consorting with the most notorious whore in France. Next time, you imitate the Dauphine and turn your back, do you understand?'

‘Charles, don't be ridiculous. I did no harm; it's unlikely I shall ever speak more than a word or two to her. Besides, you can't forbid me, when your own mistress is one of her intimates!'

‘My mistress may move in a circle of whores, but not my wife,' he answered. ‘Now tell me where I can find Captain O'Neil!'

‘Why?' Anne demanded. She was free of him now and she turned to him and touched him in a gesture of appeal. ‘Please, Charles, please don't hurt Francis—don't go and pick any quarrel with him!' Her mother-in-law's words came back to her: ‘Nothing would please Charles more than to kill an innocent man in a duel …' ‘I'll do what you want me to do; I'll tell him he must leave, I won't invite the Dubarry to the ball, I'll do anything, only don't do him any harm. He's done none to you!'

‘Not for the want of trying, or the want of wishing, I'll swear to that. Where is he, Anne? Tell me and stop arguing or I'll take you down with me to find him in your nightdress. That should provoke this quarrel you're so anxious to avoid. Are you afraid I'll kill him? Or are you thinking of me, by any chance?'

‘I'm thinking of you both,' she said desperately. ‘He could just as well kill you as the other way about—he's an expert swordsman.'

‘How interesting,' Charles jeered. ‘You whet my appetite to try him. Once more, where is he?'

‘Probably downstairs working at the accounts; that's where he said he was going when I said good night. Please, I beg you, don't go down. Let me dismiss him in the morning.'

For a moment Charles considered her. ‘Go and dress in something,' he said suddenly. ‘You will dismiss him in my presence. That should convince him. Hurry, or I'll do it alone. And I think you know what that will mean.'

At the door of her room she turned and looked at him; her eyes were red with tears.

‘Is there not one jot of human feeling in you?' she asked him. ‘Are you so completely cruel and merciless that you must punish both of us by making me do this?'

‘Cruel and merciless!' He stared at her in surprise. ‘I came here intending to have him beaten by my postilions and thrown into the gutter outside the gates … But, as I said, I think you've only been foolish. I'm taking a lenient view.'

Francis was in the small closet on the ground floor which he used as an office; there were two candles burning on the writing-table and he was so intent on the heap of papers in front of him that he did not look up at once when the door opened. When he did so, and saw Anne, deadly pale, with Charles beside her, he sprang up with an exclamation. As Charles moved into the room, he stood very still behind the table. He had never seen Anne's husband before. The man who moved towards him, drawing Anne by the hand, was as tall and sparsely built as an athlete, fashionably dressed in brocade and laces, with the fierce cruel face of a leopard under his powdered wig, and one hand on his sword. His expression of arrogant contempt was so insufferable that even before he spoke Francis stepped out into the middle of the room.

‘So you are Captain O'Neil, my wife's agent?'

The drawling tone was as insulting as the look which went with it. Francis flushed an angry red.

Watching him, Charles recognized the quality which made Anne say that he might just as well kill him if they fought. This was no worthless womanizer; he had met men of O'Neil's mettle before. To his surprise he felt the same sharp pang of annoyance as on the first evening when he saw the handsome young man in the Salon d'Appollon, waiting for his wife. Charles had never been jealous of anyone before; he found the emotion difficult to sustain even for a moment. He was about to lose his temper.

‘I am, sir,' Francis said. ‘Who, may I enquire, are you?' Generations of proud and insolent O'Neils spoke through their descendant's mouth at that moment. It was an answer delivered in a manner worthy of any Macdonald at his worst.

Anne pulled her hand away from her husband's and came quickly forward.

‘Francis, this is my husband. We—I have something to say to you.'

‘Yes,' Charles said. ‘My wife has no further need of your services. You are to leave the Hôtel.'

Francis turned away from him and came face to face with Anne.

‘Is this what you wish?' he asked quietly. ‘Don't be afraid. If you want me to throw him into the street I'll do it. I won't let him harm you. Just say the word.'

‘I told you,' Charles cut in, and now there was no pretence between any of them. ‘Leave the house, or by God I'll have my servants strip you and whip you through the streets! Anne, go upstairs to your room … your money soldier doesn't like being dislodged, I see.'

Francis looked over his shoulder at him. ‘No servant of yours will lay a hand on me before I've thrashed the master with the flat of my sword if he's too much a coward to try it at the proper end! Do as he says,' he spoke gently to Anne. ‘Go upstairs and leave this to me.'