King of the Castle (23 page)

“But Francoise didn’t know what was going on. I tried to make it all natural for her.”

“What was going on?” I asked.

She shot a sharp look at me.

“He wasn’t cut out to be a father. He wanted the house run like a … monastery.”

“And her mother … Honorine.”

Nounou turned away.

“She was an invalid.”

“No,” I said, ‘not a happy childhood for poor Francoise . a father a fanatic, a mother an invalid. “

“I saw that she was happy.”

“Yes, she sounds happy with her embroidery and piano lessons. She writes about them as though she enjoys them. When her mother died ..

”

“Yes?” said Nounou sharply.

“Was she very unhappy?”

Nounou rose and from a drawer took another of those little notebooks.

“Read it,” she said.

I opened it. She had been for a walk. She had had her music lesson.

She had embroidered the altar cloth she was working on; she had had lessons with her governess. The orderly life of an ordinary little girl.

And then came the entry: “Papa came to the schoolroom this morning when we were doing history. He looked very sad and said: ” I have news for you, Francoise. You have no mother now! ” I felt I ought to cry but I couldn’t. And Papa looked at me so sadly and sternly.

“Your mother has been ill for a long time and could never have been well. This is God’s answer to our prayers.” I had not prayed that she should die, I said; and he replied that God worked in a mysterious way. We had prayed for my mother and this was a happy release.

“Her troubles are over now,” he said. And he went out of the schoolroom. “

“Papa has been sitting in the death chamber for two days and nights.

He has not left it and I have been there too to pay my respects to the dead. I knelt by the bed for a long time and I cried bitterly. I thought it was because Maman was dead but it was really because my knees hurt and I didn’t like being there. Papa prays all the time; and it is all about forgiveness for his sins. I was frightened for if he is so sinful what about the rest of us who don’t pray half as much as he does? “

“Maman wears a nightdress in her coffin. Papa says she is now at peace. All the servants have been in to pay their last respects. Papa stays there and prays all the time for forgiveness.”

“Today was the funeral. It was a magnificent sight. The horses wore plumes and sable trappings. I walked with Papa at the head of the procession with a black veil all over my face and the new black frock which Nounou sat up all night to finish. I cried when we came out of the church and stood beside the hearse while the orator told everyone that Maman had been a saint. It seemed dreadful that such a good person should die.”

“It is quiet in the house. Papa is in his cell. I know he is praying because when I stood outside the door I could hear him. He prays for forgiveness, that his great sin may die with him, that he alone shall suffer. I think he is asking God not to be too hard on Maman when she gets to heaven and that whatever the Great Sin was, it was his fault not hers.”

I finished reading and looked up at Nounou.

“What is this Great Sin? Did you ever discover?”

“He was a man who saw sin in laughter.”

“I wonder he married. I wonder he didn’t go into a monastery and live his life there.”

Nounou would only lift her shoulders.

The Comte went to Paris in the New Year and Philippe 183

accompanied him. I was progressing with my work and now had several pictures to show for it. It was tremendously exhilarating to see their original beauty. It gave me great pleasure merely to look at them and to remember how little by little those glowing colours had emerged when they had been released from the grime of years. But this was more than a return to beauty; it was my own vindication. I had never enjoyed work as I did this; and I had never found a house which intrigued me as Chateau Gaillard did.

January was exceptionally cold and there was a great deal of activity in the vineyards, where it was feared the frosts would kill the vines.

Genevieve and I often stopped during our rides or walks to watch the workers. Sometimes we called in at the Bastides’ and on one occasion Jean Pierre took us down to the cellars and showed us the casks of wine which were maturing and explained to us the processes through which the wine had to pass.

Genevieve said that the deep cellars reminded her of the oubliette in the chateau to which Jean Pierre remarked that nothing was forgotten here. He showed us how the light was admitted through small apertures in order to regulate the temperature; he warned us that no plants or flowers must be brought down here as they give something to the wine which would spoil the taste.

“How old are these cellars?” Genevieve wanted to know.

“They’ve been here as long as there was wine here … and that’s hundreds of years ago.”

“And while they looked after their wine and made sure the temperature was all right,” commented Genevieve, ‘they were putting people into the dungeons and leaving them to freeze and starve to death. “

“Wine being more important to your noble ancestors than their enemies, naturally.”

“And all those years ago it was the Bastides who made the wine.”

“And there was one Bastide who earned the honour of becoming an enemy of your noble ancestors. His bones lie in the chateau.”

“Oh, Jean Pierre! Where?”

“In the oubliette. He was insolent to the Comte de la Talle, was called before him, and never seen again. He went to the chateau, but he never came out. Imagine him. Called before the Comte.

“Come in, Bastide. Now what is this trouble you are making?” The bold Bastide tries to explain, falsely believing that he is as good as his masters;

and then Monsieur Ie Comte moves his feet and the ground opens . down goes the insolent Bastide where others have gone before him. To freeze to death, to starve to death . to die of the wounds he receives in the fall. What does it matter? He is no longer a nuisance to Monsieur Ie Comte. “

“You still sound resentful,” I said in surprise.

“Oh, no. There was the Revolution. Then it was the turn of the Bastides.”

He was not talking seriously, for almost immediately he was laughing.

The weather changed suddenly and the vines were no longer in acute danger, although, Jean Pierre told us, the spring frost could be the most dangerous enemy of all to the grape because it could strike unexpectedly.

Those days stand out as the peaceful days. There were happy little incidents which I remember vividly. Genevieve and I were often together; our friendship was growing slowly but steadily. I made no attempt to force it, for although I was growing closer to her there were times when she seemed a stranger to me. She had been right when she had said she had two personalities. Sometimes I found her watching me almost slyly: at others she was naively affectionate.

I thought constantly of the Comte and when he was

absent once again I started to build up a picture of him which common sense warned me was not true. I remembered his tolerance in giving me a chance to prove my ability, and his generosity, when he found he had been wrong to doubt me, in admitting it by giving me the miniature.

Then he had put the presents in the shoes, which showed a desire to make his daughter happy. I was sure he had been pleased that I had won the emerald brooch. Why? Simply because he wanted me to have some thing of value that would be a little nest-egg for the future.

I shivered, contemplating that future. I could not stay indefinitely at the chateau. I had restored a number of the pictures in the gallery and those were the ones I had been employed to deal with. The work would not last for ever. Yet in this pleasant dream-world in which I lived during those weeks, it was firmly fixed in my mind that I should be at the chateau for a long time to come.

Some people find it easy to believe things are what they want them to be. I had never been like that. until now, preferring always to face the truth, priding myself on my good sense. I had changed since I had come here; and oddly enough I would not look deep enough into my mind to discover why.

Mardi Gras was the time for carnival, and Genevieve was as excited as Yves and Margot, who showed her how to make paper flowers and masks;

and because I thought it was good for her to join in these activities we rode into the little town on one of the Bastides’ carts and behind our grotesque masks we pelted each other with paper flowers.

We were present in the square when they hung the Carnival Man from the mock gibbet and we actually danced in the crowd.

Genevieve was ecstatic when we returned to the castle.

“I’ve often heard of Mardi Gras,” she declared, ‘but I never knew it was such fun. “

“I hope,” I said, ‘that your father would not have objected to your being there. “

“We shall never know,” she answered mischievously, ‘because we’re not going to tell him, are we, miss? “

“If he asked we should certainly tell him,” I retorted.

“He never would. He’s not interested in us, miss.”

Was she a little resentful? Perhaps, but she cared less about his neglect than she had once. And Nounou raised no objections as long as wherever Genevieve went I was with her. She seemed to have a faith in me which I found flattering.

And when I took her into the town Jean Pierre had been with us. It was he who suggested these jaunts; he delighted in them; and Genevieve enjoyed his company. No harm could come to Genevieve while she was with the Bastides, I assured myself.

It was during the first week of Lent that the Comte and Philippe returned to the chateau.

The news spread rapidly throughout the household and in the town.

Philippe was betrothed. He was going to marry Mademoiselle Claude de la Monelle.

The Comte came to me in the gallery where I was working. It was a lovely sunny morning, and now that the days were longer I was spending more time in the gallery. The brightness made more obvious my work of restoration, and he studied the pictures with pleasure.

“Excellent, Mademoiselle Lawson,” he murmured; and his eyes were on me, dark with the expression which always set me wondering.

“And what’s this operation?” he asked.

I explained to him that the painting on which I was working had been badly damaged and that layers of paint were missing. I was filling them with gesso putty and afterwards I should retouch with paint.

“You are an artist. Mademoiselle Lawson.”

“As you once remarked … an artist manquee.”

“And you have forgiven though not forgotten that unkind observation?”

“One does not have to forgive others for speaking the truth.”

“How strong-minded you are. We as well as our pictures have need of you.”

He had taken a step nearer to me and his eyes were still fixed on my face. It could not be with admiration? I knew what I looked like. My brown coat had never been becoming: my hair had a habit of escaping from its pins and I was always unaware of it until something happened to make me; my hands were stained with the materials I used. It was certainly not my appearance which interested him.

It was the way in which philanderers behaved to all women, of course.

The thought spoilt my pleasure in the moment and I tried to push it away.

I said: “You need have no fear. I shall use a paint which is easily soluble in case it should have to be removed. Colours ground in synthetic resin are, you know.”

“I did not know,” he replied.

“It is so. You see, when these pictures were painted, artists mixed their own paints. They and they alone knew the secrets … and each painter had his own method. That is what makes the old masters unique.

It’s so difficult to copy them. “

He bowed his head.

“Retouching is a delicate operation,” I went on.

“Naturally a restorer should not attempt to add his ideas to an original.”

He was amused, realizing perhaps that I was talking to hide my embarrassment. Then he said suddenly: “I can see that could be disastrous. It would be like trying to make a person what you thought he should be. Instead of which you should help to bring out the good subdue the evil.”

“I was thinking only of painting. It is the only subject on which I could speak with some knowledge.”

“And your enthusiasm when you speak of it proclaims you an expert.

Tell me, how is my daughter progressing with her English? “

“She is making excellent progress.”

“And you do not find teaching her and the care of the pictures too much for you?”

I smiled.

“I enjoy them both so much.”

“I’m glad that we can provide you with so much pleasure. I thought you might find our country life dull.”

“By no means. I have to thank you for allowing me the use of your stables.”

“Something else you enjoy?”

“Very much.”

“Life here at the chateau has been much quieter than in the past.” He looked over my head and added coldly: “After my wife’s death we did not entertain as we used to and we have never gone back to the old ways. It will probably be different now that my cousin is to be married and his wife will be mistress of the chateau.”

“Until,” I said impulsively, ‘you yourself marry. “

I was sure I detected bitterness in his voice as he said:

“What makes you imagine I should do so?”

I felt I had been guilty of tactlessness and I said in self-defence:

“It seems perhaps natural that you should … in time.”

“I thought that you knew the circumstances of my wife’s death.

Mademoiselle Lawson? “

“I have heard … talk,” I replied, feeling like a woman who has put one foot in a quagmire and must withdraw quickly before she is completely submerged.

“Ah,” he said, ‘talk! There are people who believe I murdered my wife.

”

“I am sure you would not be affected by such nonsense.”

“You are embarrassed?” He was smiling, taunting me

now.