Daughter of Deceit (37 page)

He took me down to Leverson Manor. Lady Constance was none too pleased, but Fiona was very good to me. She made me interested in helping her, which I was able to do. She was getting married to a young man she had met some time before through her work. He had come down to Leverson because there was a lot of work over this Neptune temple. He was now helping her and they will live in Fiona’s
house, now that her grandmother is away in the hospital.

I don’t know why I’m going on like this. I suppose it is because I am trying to bring myself to tell you.

I am not at all sure how you’ll take it, after what happened between you two. I was so desperate. I was in despair. I even thought of killing myself. I might have done so if it had not been for Roderick. He knew what was in my mind. Nobody understood as he did. I had not only lost the work which meant so much to me … but a means of livelihood. You can imagine how I felt.

Well, we both had to make something of our lives, and then suddenly he said he would look after me. He would marry me.

And that is what has happened, Noelle.

I feel so different now. Charlie is very good to me. He is such a kind, good man, and so is Roderick.

Lady Constance is very angry, but you know how calm and cool she can be … at the same time letting you know how much she resents you.

I didn’t care. I had a reason to go on living.

Noelle, forgive me. I know just how you must be feeling. But it wasn’t to be, was it?

Roderick says we have to make something of our lives, and that is what we are doing.

I do hope something very good will turn up for you as it has for me. Sometimes we can’t have what we want in life, can we? We just have to take what is there.

My loving thoughts are with you.

God bless you and bring you some hope of happiness … as Roderick and I have found.

Lisa

I was stunned. Roderick and Lisa … married! I kept remembering scenes from the past. That first meeting in the park; that night she had taken my mother’s place; Roderick had been there; she had asked him to come and see her performance. Of course, right from the beginning, she had been in love with him.

Somewhere at the back of my mind, I had hoped that a miracle might happen, that everything would come right. How foolish I had been! How could it ever come right? And now … this was the end. He was married to Lisa.

I had to forget. I had to stop thinking of him.

I put the letter into a drawer, but I could not forget it. Again and again, I took it out and read it.

I had told Robert. He was deeply touched.

“Robert,” I said. “I feel adrift … floating aimlessly with no destination in sight. I am just being carried where the tide takes me. I can see it all clearly. Lisa … her career in ruins … lost as I am now. I know that he loved me, but he would understand Lisa’s plight so absolutely. He was always understanding and thoughtful of other people. She was helpless, I believe on the verge of suicide, and he saw one way of helping her … giving her a home … security … helping her to fight back.”

“It is a terrible tragedy, Noelle. I wish I could help more. I think you are happier here than you can be anywhere else.”

“I can’t stay here indefinitely, Robert.”

“Why not? Regard it as your home.”

“But it is not my home. I am doing nothing with my life.”

“You do a great deal. Marie-Christine is a different girl since you came. We have always been worried about her. Poor child, she has not had much of a life. And we are so fond of you … Angele as well as myself. So is Gerard. Don’t think of leaving us, please.”

“I don’t want to go,” I said. “I can’t think what I should do.”

“Then stay. You should go more to Paris.”

So I stayed.

The weeks were slipping away. It was nearly two months since I had received Lisa’s letter. I had replied briefly, thanking her for letting me know, and wished her and Roderick a happy future. I had heard nothing since. And it was better so.

Lars Petersen had an exhibition, and I was caught up in that. He showed my portrait, which was bought for some national collection. He was delighted. Gerard had the painting of me hanging in his studio.

“I like to see it,” he said. “It inspires me every day.”

Marie-Christine and I, with the ubiquitous Mademoiselle Dupont, were more frequently in Paris than in the country.

While they were at their lessons, I would go to the studio. I had taken to shopping in the markets, which was always an exhilarating experience, and I would take in something tasty for
dejeuner.
It was becoming a habit. Gerard and I would sit together, often joined by Lars Petersen or some impecunious artist looking for a free meal.

Robert was right when he said that the bohemian life was good for me.

G6rard had noticed the change in me, and one day, when we were alone, he asked me what had happened.

I could not resist telling him. I said: “Roderick is married. I shouldn’t mind, but I do. It is the best thing for him. He has married Lisa Fennell, who was understudy to my mother. She had an accident and that was the end of her theatrical career as a dancer, which was what she did best. I think he was sorry for her. He liked her, too. He was always interested in her career. On
occasions I had a twinge of jealousy. And now … she is married to him. She will spend her life with him as I had intended to spend mine.”

“My poor Noelle. Life is cruel. Troubles do not come like single spies but in battalions. Does not your Shakespeare say that?”

“I believe he did, and it is true in my case.”

“But there must be a turnabout. Things will change and then everything will go right. It is a law of nature.”

“I shall never forget Roderick.”

“I know.”

“He will always be there, and always there will be the knowledge of what I have lost.”

“I understand.”

“Because of Marianne …”

“I shall never be able to forget Marianne,” he said.

A shadow fell across the door. Lars Petersen looked in.

“Something smells good,” he said. “Is there a little to spare for a poor hungry man?”

I seemed to have become haunted by Marianne. I knew exactly what she had looked like. I could not get out of my mind those sketches I had come across in Lars Petersen’s cupboard.

I asked questions about her. I talked to Marie-Christine. I tried to talk to Angele. All they would say was: “She was very beautiful.” “The most beautiful woman in the world,” said Marie-Christine. “She had the sort of looks people could not help noticing,” said Angele. “She found the country life dull. She could not have been much more than fifteen when one of the artists who had come down to see Gerard caught a glimpse of her. He wanted to paint her, and that was the beginning of her modelling career. She went to Paris. But she came back fairly frequently to see her sister and the nurse.”

There was very little I could discover which I did not already know. Yet I continued to think of her, because she had bewitched Gerard as well as others.

I
suggested to Marie-Christine that we visit her aunt again.

“I think they were rather pleased to see you when you called last time,” I said.

“All right,” said Marie-Christine, “although / don’t think they care much whether I go or not.”

“Well, you are Marianne’s daughter, so let us go.”

We went and were received warmly enough. Polite questions were asked about my impressions.

“You are almost one of us now,” said Candice.

“I have certainly been here quite a long time.”

“And you have no desire to leave us?”

“It is very pleasant here, and I have not made any plans to do so.”

“We won’t let her go,” said Marie-Christine. “Every time she mentions going, we tell her she is not to.”

“I can understand that,” said Candice, smiling.

She wanted to show us the garden, and while we were all walking round together, I had an opportunity of being a little apart with Nounou.

I said: “I wanted to talk to you about … Marianne.”

Her face lit up.

“I’d like to hear more about her,” I went on. “She sounds so interesting, and you know more of her than anyone, I imagine.”

“Interesting! We were never dull with that one around! Candice doesn’t talk of her much … especially before Marie-Christine.”

“You must have lots of pictures of her.”

“I look at them all the time. It brings her back. I’d like to show you, but …”

“It’s a pity. I should love to see them.”

“Why don’t you come one day … alone? In the morning, say. Candice would be out. She goes out in the morning … shopping in Villemere. She takes the trap. She visits friends there, too. In the morning … come alone.”

“That would be very interesting.”

“I’ll show you my pictures of her. Then we can talk in comfort.”

Candice was saying: “I was showing Marie-Christine this holly
bush. There are lots of berries forming on it. They say that means a hard winter.”

That was the beginning of my visits to Nounou.

It was easy to call during the mornings when Marie-Christine was at her lessons and Candice was out. There was a conspiratorial air about the visits which suited our moods—mine as well as Nounou’s. They took my mind off my obsessive wondering about what was happening at Leverson Manor. I imagined their riding over to the site, marvelling at the discoveries, drinking coffee with Fiona … and perhaps her new husband … a cosy little quartet. I would torture myself with these imaginings, and it was a mild relief to ride over to Carrefour and chat with Nounou. I asked myself what I should say if Candice returned unexpectedly, or even happened to be there when I called. “Oh, I was passing and I just looked in.” I supposed perhaps she would accept that, but I doubted it.

Nounou revelled in our meetings. There was nothing she liked so much as to talk about her adored Marianne.

She showed me pictures of her. There was Marianne as a child, showing signs of that great beauty, and as a young woman, proving how that early promise was justified.

“She was a sorceress,” said Nounou. “All the men wanted her. She was restless here in this place. It was too quiet for her. Candice was the serious one. She tried to hold her back. She wanted her to marry well and settle down.”

“Candice didn’t marry.”

“Well … she lived under the shadow of her twin sister. It was always Marianne whom people noticed. Without her sister, she would have seemed a very nice-looking girl. She ought to have married some nice young man. But there was always Marianne. And then this artist came down to see Monsieur Gerard, and he took one look at her and wanted to paint her. That was the start for her, and when Marianne wanted something, there was no stopping her. So she went to Paris. First one wanted to paint her and then
another. She was famous. They were all talking about Marianne. Then she married Monsieur Gerard.”

“You were pleased about that?”

“It was a good match, of course. The Boucheres were always the big people round here. Well, there it was … what you’d expect of our beauty. He was always painting her.”

“So it was a happy marriage?”

“Monsieur Gerard … well, he was as proud as proud could be. He’d got the prize, hadn’t he?”

“And they lived mainly in Paris?”

“Oh, they were here now and then. She was always coming over here. Couldn’t desert her old Nounou. She was always my girl. She’d tell me things.”

“So you knew a great deal about what was happening?”

Nounou nodded sagely. “I could see there were things going on, and she was only going to tell me half of them. Oh, she was a wild one. Then, for that to happen to her … to see her there, dead at my feet! I felt I would die … I wished I had before I’d seen that. I just can’t bear to think of it … even now.”

We were silent for a while. I could hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking away the seconds … reminding me that time was passing. I must leave before Candice returned and Marie-Christine finished her lessons.

“Come again whenever you feel like it, my dear,” said Nounou. “It’s good to talk to you … though it brings it all back. Still, it makes me feel she is close to me … like she used to be.”

I said I would come again to see her soon.

We were in Paris again. Marie-Christine was always excited by these visits, and Robert and Angele thought it was good for us to make them; and as the house was there, they said why not use it. I always felt an upsurge of my spirits when I came into the city. When I was away from it, I missed the free and easy way of life lived by Gerard and his friends. The studio had become part of
my life, and I believed that there I was more able to put thoughts of Roderick out of my mind.

I looked forward to our lunches, particularly when they were uninterrupted. Gerard was becoming one of my best friends. There was a bond between us: I had lost Roderick; he had lost Marianne. That made for a deep understanding which no one else could quite give.