Zipporah's Daughter (Knave of Hearts) (16 page)

The Tourville family itself was not very exciting. Charles’s father was an invalid; his mother a mild woman who adored her family. There was a sister Amélie for whom a marriage was being arranged.

They were a wealthy family, although not nearly so rich as my father; and clearly they had been delighted with the alliance between our families. They would have preferred Sophie, of course; but it showed how much they wanted an alliance to have accepted a daughter of illegitimate birth. However, the dowry had been the same as that which would have gone with Sophie.

I should have found life at Tourville very dull but for Charles.

So I went on in that excited state until I became pregnant, which was about eight months after my marriage.

Everyone at Tourville was delighted and when messages were sent to Aubigné there was great rejoicing there.

During the first three months I felt wretchedly sick and after that when I began to grow bulky I was in no state for night frolics with Charles. I guessed then that he found a mistress, for he was not the sort of man to deny himself, and he would think, from what he had always been brought up to believe, that it was the natural course of events.

Strangely enough, coming into motherhood had changed me too. I was absorbed now in the baby and that was enough for me.

Charles was the devoted husband, delighted that I had shown so soon evidence of my fruitfulness and he did not show any rancour because I could no longer endure him in my bed.

My mother came over from Aubigné to be with me at the birth and the delight of everyone was great when I produced a healthy boy.

We called him Charles, which soon became Charlot, and from the moment I heard his first lusty scream he was of the utmost importance to me.

Those were some of the happiest months of my life. I remember so well sitting up in bed with my baby in my arms and people coming in to admire him and congratulate me.

Charles walked round the room with the baby in his arms.

‘Clever, clever Lottie,’ he said, and kissed me.

My father came to see his grandson. He held the child aloft and looked at him with such pride that I laughed.

‘I see you are pleased with him,’ I said.

Reverently he laid the child in his cradle and came to sit beside my bed.

‘Dear Lottie,’ he said, ‘what a happy day it was when you came to me and now it is you who have given me my first grandchild.’ He took my hand and kissed it. ‘Your mother is so proud of you … and so am I.’

I said: ‘You overrate me. It is no great achievement. Women are doing it all over the world at this moment.’

‘Some seem incapable of it.’ He sighed.

I knew he was thinking of Armand and Marie Louise. It was a great disappointment to him that there was no child of that marriage.

After the birth of my son my relationship with my husband changed. He was no longer the delighted teacher, I no longer the pupil avid to learn. I had become mature somehow.

We were lovers, but love-making seemed to have become a routine instead of the indescribable thrill it had once been.

I suppose marriage was like that. However, I had my son and that was contentment enough.

Spring had come and I was going to Aubigné to visit my parents. I rarely went to Aubigné and usually found some reason for not going, suggesting that my parents come to Tourville instead. They were frequent visitors for they wanted to see their grandson growing up. My father would have liked us to live at the Château d’Aubigné but that of course was out of the question. Tourville was Charles’s home and responsibility and I was his wife.

So I continued to make excuses that it was difficult travelling with a child and they came to us.

Chariot was two—old enough to be left to the care of his excellent nurse and I was to make the journey to Aubigné because my mother had sprained her ankle and was unable to make the proposed spring visit to Tourville.

‘She longs to see you,’ wrote my father. ‘Do try to come. I know little Chariot is too young to travel, but if you could spare us a week or so it would so please your mother.’

I decided that my desire to stay away from Aubigné must be conquered. I still thought of Sophie on the night before I had left, standing at the foot of my bed, so tragic in the wedding-dress she believed should have been hers, with the veil falling away from her poor scarred face. Surely over the years she had come to terms with her fate; surely common sense must tell her that I was not to blame for what had happened to her. Although I had looked, I had never found the artificial flower which had caused her such distress, and presumed it had been mislaid when the maid was packing for me at some time.

I arrived at Aubigné in the early afternoon. My parents were waiting for me and I laughingly protested to my father that he would suffocate me in his embrace. My mother looked on with that expression of pleased content which she always wore when my father and I were together.

I was showered with questions. How was I? How was Chariot? Had I had a good journey? How long could I stay?

‘Soon Chariot will be old enough to travel,’ said my mother. ‘We thought you would like your old room. We haven’t used it since you went. I don’t like the thought of anyone else in it. Silly of me. But there are so many rooms in the castle.’

She was babbling on in her excitement and I felt happy to be with them.

But I was not so happy to be in that room of memories. I hoped I should not dream of a ghostly scarred figure coming into my room.

We dined alone.

‘Armand will be back tomorrow,’ said my father. ‘He is at Court. There is a great deal of trouble brewing. Last year’s harvest is the cause of it. You remember how severe the weather was. It has been difficult to keep down the price of grain. The King is most disturbed. He really does seem to care. A change from his grandfather … that wicked old reprobate.’

It was a year since Louis XV had died and young Louis with his wife Marie Antoinette had, so we had heard, been overcome with emotion when they had been called upon to rule. Louis had been nineteen and his Queen eighteen and it was known that they had knelt and prayed: ‘Oh God, guide us and protect us. We are too young to rule.’ And the whole nation had been moved by the plight of these two young people, but heartened by their realization of their duties and determination to carry them out, which was in such contrast to the old King. It had seemed that a new era was coming to France, so it was unfortunate that right at the start of the new reign there should have been such a hard winter producing a bad harvest.

‘Young Louis did well in putting Turgot at the head of finances,’ said my father who seemed unable to keep his thoughts from politics. ‘He is a good, sincere man who is eager to do his best for his country. But it is not going to be easy to keep down the price of corn and if the cost of bread goes up, which seems inevitable, that is going to make the people restive.’

‘Oh dear,’ I sighed. ‘There are always these troubles. I want to hear about Aubigné. Sophie … ?’

There was a brief silence.

Then my mother said: ‘She keeps to her turret. I do wish she would be with us more. She is becoming a hermit. Jeanne chooses which servants are to go in and clean. She really is rather autocratic. But what can we do? We have to bow to her. She really is so necessary to Sophie.’

‘I hope I shall be able to see Sophie while I am here.’

‘She refuses to see people. It is very sad to think of her up there … her life slipping away.’

‘Is it possible for anything to be done for her?’

‘There are lotions and creams. Jeanne is always going out to the markets and bringing things back. How effective they are I cannot say. Not very, I should think, for Sophie stays up there and it is really only Jeanne who has any communication with her.’

‘It would be better if she went into a convent,’ said my father.

‘Is she likely to?’

‘No, Marie Louise is more likely to do that.’

‘Marie Louise is a very good girl,’ said my mother.

‘Too good for this world,’ answered my father shortly.

My mother lifted her shoulders. ‘She should never have married,’ she said. ‘She cannot bear children. I think they have given up the attempt.’

‘One can’t blame Armand,’ went on my father. It was clear that he had no great love for his daughter-in-law. ‘She is so pious. The chapel is always in use. Once a day used to be enough. Now she spends most of her time there. Her servants have to attend with her. It is most depressing. At this moment she is staying the night at the Convent de la Forêt Verte. You know it. It is only three miles from the château. She is endowing it with a new altar. Lottie, this place has changed since you left us.’

‘Your father longs for the days when you were here, Lottie,’ said my mother. ‘Then Sophie behaved more normally. She was always quiet, and then there was that other girl … ’

‘Lisette,’ I cried. ‘I often think of her. I wrote to her but she never answered. How is Tante Berthe?’

‘The same as ever.’

‘I do want a word with her before I go. I should really love to see Lisette again.’

‘She was a very pretty girl,’ said my mother.

‘And still is, I don’t doubt,’ I replied. ‘It would be so interesting to see her again. I shall certainly beard Tante Berthe in her den. She is still in the same quarters, I suppose.’

‘Just the same. She is very proud of them and no one is allowed to go in without an invitation.’

‘What a martinet she always was!’

‘But an excellent manager,’ said my father. ‘We have never regretted her coming.’

‘I am surprised that she allowed Lisette to escape. She used to watch over her so carefully. Lisette used to be really scared of her … the only person she ever was scared of.’

Then we talked of other matters but I went on thinking of Lisette and the fun we used to have together. That was inevitable now that I was at the château.

The next day Marie Louise came back from the convent. She was far from good-looking and despised those little aids to beauty which most women seemed to use nowadays. She wore her hair very simply tied back. None of those Marie Antoinette styles for her. Her gown was dark grey and decidedly drab. When I expressed my pleasure at seeing her and said that I hoped we should be together sometime, she told me she sewed for the poor every afternoon and if I would care to join her she would find some work for me to do and she could tell me about the altar she was going to build for the Forêt Verte.

I did not find the prospect very exciting and as needlework had never appealed to me, I allowed the invitation to lapse.

It was pleasant to see Armand. His unsatisfactory marriage did not appear to have changed him at all. He was of a placid nature and apparently took what came to him in a philosophical way. I was sure he had a pleasant mistress somewhere—several perhaps—and he was quite content to leave matters as they were.

The Comte, however, was less ready to accept the state of affairs. My mother told me how disturbed he was by Armand’s sterile marriage.

‘There is the family line … the estates and everything. Your father is worried about that. However, he is delighted with little Charlot.’

Then we talked of my son and she wanted to know what he had done and said, for he could chatter away quite intelligently now, which we both declared was miraculous; and we spent a great deal of time talking of him.

I did see Tante Berthe in her rooms when I was granted an interview. I thought how I should have laughed with Lisette afterwards, if only she had been there to laugh with me.

Tante Berthe in black bombazine, very plain but most elegantly cut and very severe, was a most dignified lady. She made tea for me, which showed how conscious she was of the ways of society, for tea-drinking was becoming quite a fashion in France. It was called
Le Thé anglais.
In fact, my father had told me, it was now the mode to look English. The Parisian shops were full of cloth from England and long coats with triple capes were being worn with stock hats. The shop windows displayed signs: ‘English spoken here.’ Lemonade-sellers were now offering
le punch,
which was said to be exactly as drunk in England.

I expressed my surprise to my father, for there had never been great friendship between our countries.

‘It is not a matter of friendship,’ said my father. ‘Most Frenchmen hate the English now as much as they did after Crecy and Agincourt. It is simply a fashion to turn people’s minds away from the trials of the country.’

In any case Tante Berthe had her tea.

‘Just as the English drink it,’ she said. ‘You would know, being partly one of them.’

I declared it was delicious and she asked how I was getting on and how the baby was.

I answered these questions but very quickly came to the subject of Lisette.

‘I rarely hear from her,’ said Tante Berthe. ‘She is kept so busy.’

‘I should love to see her.’

That was greeted with silence.

‘Does she seem happy?’

‘She has a little one now.’

‘A little one? A baby?’

‘Yes. A little boy.’

‘Oh, I would love to see her. Do tell me how I can get into touch with her. I will ask her to come and visit us.’

‘I don’t think that would be wise, Mademoiselle Lottie.’

‘Not wise? But we were always such friends.’

‘Oh, she has her life now. It is not the life of the château but she is beginning to grow content.’

‘Please tell me where I can find her.’

‘She wouldn’t want that.’

‘I am sure she would want to see me as much as I want to see her’.’

‘It was hard for her to get accustomed to farm life after living as she did. It was above her station. She’s settling in now. Leave well alone. She is happy now. You must not remind her of the life she once had.’

‘It was strange that she should marry a farmer. She always used to say that she would marry into nobility.’

‘Real life is different from dreams and it is real life that has to be lived.’

I begged once more for knowledge of Lisette’s whereabouts but Tante Berthe was adamant and refused to tell me.