The Song of the Siren (34 page)

It was Benjie who haunted me and threw the shadow of deep remorse over my happiness, and it was only in rare moments that I could forget him.

Paris excited me. As soon as we arrived in that fascinating city we went at once to the hotel in the quarter of the Marais which I learned later was one of the most fashionable areas of the city. The King of France had been hospitable to the English nobility who were the enemies of England’s reigning sovereign; and with good reason, for he was at this time at war with that country.

At Eversleigh we had always been brought up to regard loyalty to the crown as one of our chief duties but I reminded myself that my grandfather Carleton had been involved in the Monmouth Rebellion. James would have called him disloyal just as Anne would Hessenfield. It was not as much a matter of lack of loyalty as it was adherence to a principle. I was becoming more and more of a Jacobite every day.

It was a fine house and there were several servants. Hessenfield

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introduced me formally as Lady Hessenfield and I held a wide-eyed Clarissa by the hand and he added: “This is our daughter.”

There was no question from anyone in France. Hessenfield had returned to England on a Jacobite mission and had brought his wife and child back with him. It was reasonable enough. I slipped easily into the new role. So did Clarissa.

I felt like a young bride in those early days. Hessenfield delighted in showing us a little of Paris. And how excited we were-Clarissa and j_to walk through those streets with him beside us. For, he said, that was the best way to see it.

We strolled through the discreet streets of the Marais-that part of the city which had once been the home of the Valois kings. Hessenfield explained to Clarissa that the rue Beautreillis was where the vineyards once were, the rue de la Cerisaie where the orchards were and the rue des Lions was the site of the royal menagerie.

We were excited by the quaint houses which overhung the river; the water lapped at their walls, and Clarissa wanted to know whether it ever came in through the windows.

She kept shrieking with excitement and sometimes was so overawed that she forgot to ask why.

Hessenfield was anxious to show us the centre of the city. We crossed the Pont Marie and reached the He de la Cite, where we looked up at the great towers of Notre Dame and he bought magnificent blooms for us on the Quai des Fleurs. Clarissa wanted to go down among the little streets near the cloisters of Notre Dame but Hessenfield would not allow us more than a peep. These were the homes of the poor and the streets were narrow lanes with houses built close together and almost meeting over the narrow streets so that they completely shut out the sunlight. I saw a gutter running down the middle of the street. It was full of slimy rubbish.

“Come away,” said Hessenfield. “You must never venture down streets like that. They abound in Paris and you can come across them quite suddenly. You must never wander out alone.”

I said: “It is the same in any big city. There are always slums.”

“What are slums?” asked Clarissa.

“These are,” said Hessenfield.

She was overcome with curiosity and tried to wriggle free but I held her hand firmly and Hessenfield picked her up and said: “You are tired, little one. Shall I be your carriage for a while?”

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I was moved to see the way she smiled and put her arms about his neck. She had not forgotten Benjie and Gregory but she did mention them less than she had at first.

Not far from the hotel in the rue Saint Antoine we passed an apothecary’s shop. Sweet scents emerged from it and I was reminded briefly of Beau, who had dabbled in the making of perfumes and was himself always redolent of that strange musklike scent.

It was what had attracted me to Matt. He had used a similar scent.

Hessenfield saw my glance and said: “Ah, there are not so many apothecaries in Paris as there once were. Years ago they abounded and there were quacks selling medicines and elixirs, potions and draughts in every carrefour in the city. Then it changed.

That must have been some forty years ago but they still talk of it. There was a notorious poisoner called La Voison and another, Madame de Brinvilliers. They suffered hideous deaths but their names will never be forgotten and all apothecaries have had to tread very warily ever since. They are still suspect.”

“You mean people buy poisons from the apothecaries?”

“They did. It is more difficult now, but I reckon it is done for a price. They were mostly Italians. The Italians have the reputation for being adept at poisoning. They can produce poisons which are tasteless, colourless, and without smell, and even work through the clothing-they can kill gradually or instantly. This Brinvilliers woman wanted to poison her husband and used to try out her poisons on people in hospitals, where she became known as a very pious lady who cared deeply about the sick.”

“She sounds like a fiend.”

“She was. Imagine her taking some delicacy impregnated with a new experiment and going along to visit the victim later to see how it had worked.”

“I am glad Clarissa is asleep. We should be plagued by whys, whens and hows if she were not. What an exciting city this is! I never saw so much mud nor heard so much noise.”

“Be careful not to get splashed. It’s pernicious mud and would burn a hole in your clothes if it touches them. The Romans called it La Lutetia when they came here, which means the City of Mud. It’s improved since then of course, but still take care.

As for the noisethis is a vociferous nation. We are quiet in comparison.”

251How I enjoyed those days-discovering Paris, discovering Hessenfield and loving both of them more each day.

Before I had been a week in Paris, Hessenfield said that I must go to the Court of King James to be presented.

St. Germain-en-Laye was some thirteen miles from Paris, and we rode there in a carriage for I must be suitably dressed for the presentation. Hessenfield had sent for one of the Paris dressmakers the day after we arrived, for I was without any garments other than those I had been wearing when I had been, as I put it, “snatched from the shrubbery,” but as Hessenfield said, “So willingly left England to follow my own true love.”

A simple gown was quickly made for me and then there was concentration on my Court dress. It was most elegant yet at the same time discreet. It was in a shade of blue that was almost lavender.

“Milord has said it must be the exact colour of milady’s eyes,” said the couturiere, who puffed and sighed over the garment as though it was to be compared with the finest work of art.

It was an exquisite colour and such as I had never seen before. The Parisian dyers were masters of the art and the colours they produced delighted me again and again.

I was put in a canvas petticoat with whalebone hoops. The panniers of blue silk were ruched and gathered and the tight-fitted bodice was made of the same lavender blue silk. Beneath it was an underskirt of green so delicate in color that one was not absolutely sure it was green.

I had never seen such a dress.

“Of course you haven’t,” said Hessenfield, surveying me. “When it comes to fashion we’re years behind the French.”

My hair was dressed by a hairdresser selected by Hessenfield. She cooed over it as she combed and back combed it until it stood out round my head in a frizz; then she started to set it and I had to admit that when she was finished I was amazed by the effect. It was piled high on my head and brought up into a coil about which she placed a diamond circlet like a coronet.

When Hessenfield saw me he was overcome with delight.

“No one ever did justice to you before, my love,” he said.

He took me into see Clarissa, who stared at me in amazement.

“Is it really you?” she asked.

252I knelt down and kissed her.

Hessenfield cried out in dismay. “You’ll wreck your skirts.”

I laughed at him and he laughed with me.

“Are you proud of her, Clarissa?” he asked.

Clarissa nodded. “But I like the other way too.”

“You like me however I am, don’t you, Clarissa?”

She nodded.

“And do I come into this magic circle?” asked Hessenfield.

“What’s circle?”

“Later we’ll talk,” said Hessenfield. “Come on, my dear, the carriage awaits us.”

So I went to St. Germain-en-Laye and to the chateau there.

I was presented to the man they called James the Third as Lady Hessenfield. James was younger than I. I think he must have been about seventeen at this time. He greeted me warmly. Although he had a regal manner, he seemed to wish to show his gratitude to those exiles who had gathered round him and particularly those who, like Hessenfield, had sacrificed a good deal to serve him.

“You have a beautiful lady, Hessenfield,” he said.

“With that I am completely in agreement, Sire.”

“She must come often to our court. We need all the grace and beauty we can get during this period of waiting.”

I said how glad I was to be here and he replied that he would have said he hoped I would stay a long time, but none of us wished to stay as the guests of the King of France a moment longer than we need.

“Let us say, Lady Hessenfield, that you and I will be good friends in Westminster and Windsor.”

I said: “I trust it may be soon, Sire.”

I was presented to his mother-poor sad Mary Beatrice of Modena. I was drawn to her more than to her son. She was by no means young and must have been about thirty when James was born. And she had suffered a great deal when as a very young girl she had come to England most reluctantly to marry James-the Duke of York-already a widower with an established mistress. I was sorry for her. She had been a beauty once but now she was so thin as though worn out with the sorrows of life. Her complexion was pale but with those fine dark eyes she must have been very beautiful in her youth.

She was as welcoming as her son and told me how glad she was to see me and I should be welcome at court whenever I wished to come.

253She had heard I had brought my daughter with me and she talked of children for a while.

“Lord Hessenfield gave such support to my husband and now gives it to my son,” she said. “I am happy for him to have his beautiful wife with him, and having seen you, my dear Lady Hessenfield, I understand his pride in you. You are a very beautiful woman and a joy to our court.”

Hessenfield was delighted that I had been such a success.

“I knew you would,” he said. “Beauty like yours is a rare gift, sweet wife. It is for me alone but I am glad to let others have a glimpse of it-a glimpse, nothing more.”

“I am not your wife, you know,” I said. “But everyone here seems to think I am.”

“You are ... you are mine. We are bound together for ever.... I have told you only death shall part us. I swear it, Carlotta. I love you. You must love me too. We have our child. I would marry you tomorrow if it were pssible. But here we are married.

Everyone believes it to be so ... and after all, what people believe to be is true for them. So let the strength of their belief be ours. My love... I am happier than I have ever been in my life.. . . You and the child ... I ask for nothing more.”

I realised that this was a strange speech for a man like Hessenfield to utter. There had been little sentimentality in his life until now. I could see that what was there had been born out of the strength of his feeling for me.

I was tremendously happy riding back in the carriage to our hotel in Paris.

Yes, Hessenfield had changed. He had become the family man. He was still the passionate and demanding lover by night, and I was amused that during the day he became absorbed by arranging his household.

The dressmaker who served the French court was often at our house. I was to be the centre of her attention. I recognized her skill and I had always been proud of my good looks so it pleased me, therefore, to discover that there were so many ways of enhancing them.

I heard that I was referred to as the Beautiful Lady Hessenfield and when I rode out people stood about to watch me.

I was vain enough to enjoy it.

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Clarissa commanded a good deal of Hessenfield’s attention and one day he said to me: “We shall have to stay at St. Germains at times. There is work for me to do and it can only be done there. We can’t take Clarissa. We should have a good nursery governess for her. Someone who can teach her and look after her at the same time.”

“I should not want her to speak French entirely. It would change her somehow.”

“She shall speak both languages.”

“But a French nurse would not speak English to her.”

“We should do that. It is hardly likely that you would find an English nursery governess here. We must look round. I have already let it be known that we are searching for someone suitable.”

“It must be someone of whom I approve.”

He kissed me. “It must be someone of whom we both approve.”

It seemed the greatest good fortune when Mary Marton arrived.

I was with Clarissa when she was announced. I left the child and received her in the salon. She was of middle height, very slender, with pale yellow hair and light blue eyes. She had an extremely deprecating manner. She had heard that I needed a nursery governess for a young child and had come to offer her services.

She told me that she had been brought to France by her mother, who had followed her father, who had been in the service of the late King. Her father had died almost immediately and she and her mother had gone to another part of France-near Angouleme.

Her mother was now dead and she had come to Paris to see if she could earn a little money as she had become very poor.

She had a family in England and hoped eventually to return to them, but as her father had been a Jacobite it would not be easy for her to return. In the meantime she had to earn a living.

She was well educated, was fond of children and qualified to take on the care of a child. In any case she would be most grateful for the chance.

I was delighted because I wanted Clarissa to retain her English characteristics.