The Flood-Tide (29 page)

‘I admit nothing,' she said. 'I have done nothing.'

‘It's all right,' he said again. 'I know everything, Chetwyn has told me everything.' She looked at him searchingly. 'I will help you,' he added gently.

‘It's not my fault,' she said, pleading for understanding. ‘I know,' Edward said. 'I know.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 It had never been Henri Maria Fitzjames Stuart's way to think ahead, or to anticipate the consequences of his actions. Luck, charm or his title had generally been enough to get him out of trouble, and he had come to think upon nothing in his life as a permanent state. So it had been when he took Madeleine from her home: he had never considered that she would be in his life, his responsibility for ever, and that the deception he had used to get her in the first place would be impossible to keep up. Nor had he wondered what her feelings would be, or whether he would care what she felt.

The baby changed things, and for all his sophistication, Henri was in a curious way unworldly enough not to have realized that it must do so. The baby was born in the August of 1777, and the heat and humidity of the Paris summer had made things very uncomfortable for Madeleine. Henri had been forced to engage a woman to look after her and keep house, and her presence and Madeleine's growing bulk made 'home' so much less attractive to him that he was hardly ever there, inventing various excuses and commissions to absent himself. All this Madeleine bore with great restraint, only once complaining that as he had taken her from her family, he might at least bear her company from time to time.

‘Madame,' he had said shortly, 'you know very well that I must be a good deal at Court.'

‘Yes,' she had replied. 'I know why you go there.' She had said no more, leaving Henri to feel at first that he had won an easy victory, and later that it had been too easy.

He was away when the baby was born, and received a frosty glare from the woman servant when he arrived on the baby's second day of life, with no knowledge that she existed.

‘We sent for you, sir, but no one knew where you were. In fact, we could not find anyone who knew you,' she said coldly. In the background a steady wailing competed for his attention, so that he did not notice her insolence.

‘The baby's born? Is he all right? How is Madame?' he asked with a sudden access of enthusiasm, and without waiting for a reply, pushed passed her into the bedroom. Madeleine was propped up on her pillows, with the baby in her arms, and she smiled at him so radiantly that he approached her with an answering smile of tenderness and affection.

‘We have a daughter, Henri,' she said, 'a beautiful daughter.'

‘A daughter,' he said, a little blankly, never having given a thought that it might not be a boy. Then he rallied himself. 'And you, Madame? Are you well? It was not too difficult a birth? I am sorry I could not be here.' He was wondering how to explain his absence, but Madeleine did not seem interested. She drew the shawl back from the baby's face so that he could see her.

‘Isn't she beautiful, Henri? The most beautiful baby in the world.’

Henri peered at the wrinkled little thing, and racked his brains for something to say. 'She's very small,' he said at last, lamely.

‘She'll grow,' Madeleine said, smiling.

‘And very red?' he hazarded.

‘That will pass, too. In a few days she will be as pale as a pearl. What shall we call her? Have you any ideas? Should we call her after you, do you think? Or after one of your patrons?'

‘Henriette?' Henri mused. 'It is a pleasant name, I suppose. Or perhaps you would like her named after you?'

‘No,' Madeleine said at once, and firmly. 'It will be better for her if she has your name - it will make you fonder of her.'

‘My dear Madeleine, why should you think—'

‘I know you wanted a son, Henri, and I am sorry not to have done better. But we will do better next time, and I promise you she will be very pretty, and everything you could desire in a daughter,' Madeleine said, and Henri felt at once touched and ashamed, and took her free hand and pressed his lips to it.

‘I am not at all disappointed, my dearest. I am only glad that you are well, and I would not exchange her for fifty sons.'

‘Then we shall call her Henriette-Louise, if it pleases you?'

‘Certainly, certainly,' Henri said.

The baby began to wail again, and Madeleine, seeing him flinch, said, 'I had better feed her, Henri. She is hungry, that's all.'

‘Well, there doesn't seem much I can do,' Henri said awkwardly. 'Perhaps—' He took a step towards the door. ‘Perhaps I had better arrange to sleep with a friend for a few nights, so as not to disturb you.'

‘Very well,' Madeleine said patiently. ‘But Henri - I should be grateful if you would leave a direction where you may be found, in case anything should happen.'

‘Of course,' he said awkwardly. 'I'll come and see you again tomorrow.’

He left with the woman servant the only name and address it was possible to give - Duncan's name, and the address of the house in the Rue de St Rustique - and made his escape. For the first few weeks he visited Madeleine every day, and as she had promised the baby soon became much more agreeable looking. But she insisted on feeding it herself, which shocked and disgusted Henri, and the little
apartement
was so filled with the baby's presence, the sound and smell of her, the preoccupation with her, and the talk of her, that his visits were a penance to him, and consenquently short. Besides, a baby so young was of no interest to him in itself, and Madeleine's bed was forbidden to him, and his visits began to be less frequent.

When Henriette-Louise was six weeks old, and Madeleine was out of bed, and the woman servant had been replaced by a girl-of-all-work, Madeleine greeted him one day with the alarming words, 'Henri, we must talk seriously. Please will you come and sit down.'

‘But of course, Madame,' Henri said with a sinking heart, having a strong feeling that he was about to be rebuked for neglecting her. His chin took on a defiant jut. If she was going to make things difficult for him, he would have to do something about getting rid of her, he thought.

‘Henri,' she began, gazing at him with her clear grey, disconcertingly penetrating eyes, 'it is time that we were honest with each other. For two years now I have lived with you as Madame Ecosse, and while I was without other responsibilities it did not matter. But now we have a child to think of. Henri, has it never occurred to you that I know who you are?’

Henri felt himself growing hot, and he had nothing to say. He could only shake his head in mute dread and embarrassment. Madeleine nodded.

‘Yes, I know that you are the Comte de Strathord, and I know why you have to be away from me so much. It must have been very difficult for you, these two years, keeping me a secret from your friends, from all the people who know you as a member of the nobility, finding a way to fulfil your duties at Court without acknowledging it to me. It makes me wonder why you chose to make your life so difficult. Why did you not confide in me, so that I could help you? Why did you choose to make a deception on both fronts?'

‘Why, I - because - I thought you would object. I thought you would go back to your father, if you knew the truth,' Henri stumbled inadequately.

‘But why should I object to being the wife of a nobleman, instead of the wife of a gentleman?' she asked. Her gaze prevented him from withdrawing his, and yet was so kind and understanding that for a moment he trembled on the brink of telling her everything, as at a confessional, and having done. But he could not find the words and in the silence the moment passed.

‘Well, now you know,' he said, perhaps a little ungraciously, 'what do you want to do?’

At last the pellucid eyes dropped, and in the relief he felt at being released there was the strangest hint of disappointment. She studied her hands for a moment, and then said briskly, 'I have been very much alone recently, and I have had time to think. I want to move away from here, Henri. I should like us to have an
apartement
on the left bank, near to my parents. I know that you will have to spend a lot of time away from us, and therefore I should like to have the support of my family to comfort me in the times when you are absent. My parents would be glad to receive me back into the family, especially now there is a grandchild, and then I should not be so lonely. Will you agree to this?'

‘But - your father - if he knew—' Henri stammered.

‘Oh, I shall not tell him, or my mother, that you are not Monsieur Ecosse. It is better that it remains our secret. I know you will come whenever you can, and when you do there is no need for you to have anything to do with my parents. Will you agree to this, Henri? I ask it as a favour.’

All the things he had loved her for became apparent again, and he felt ashamed that she should beg from him things so easy for him to grant. She asked so little, made matters so easy for him. If only she had been a little higher in rank, and he a little richer, he would have married her gladly.

‘My grandmother would have approved of you,' he said suddenly, and took her hands in his. 'I have neglected you shamefully of late, Madeleine, but I shall make amends. You shall live anywhere you please, and you shall lack for nothing, you and the baby, if I can help it.’

So the move was made, to a tiny house on the Cour du Commerce, where a great many lawyers lived. Madeleine had two maids, one general servant and one to look after the baby, and soon settled in and made the place inimitably her own. She made her peace with her parents, but Henri never asked her for the details of transaction, and true to her promise he was never asked to meet with them. But as autumn turned to winter he was often there, much more often than he had been at the house in the Rue des Martyrs, and he found again the peace and contentment he had had with her in the first year.

They also made a number of new friends. A pretty, intelligent, cheerful woman with a warm fireside and a well-stocked larder was a great attraction, and married and unmarried, the lawyers of the Cour du Commerce were eager for invitations to visit Monsieur and Madame Ecosse. There were plenty of evenings when Henri ate at his own hearth, with his child sleeping in the back room, and a lively discussion going on around him, in which his 'wife' took as much part as he did. He even came to take a certain amount of interest in his daughter as she grew bigger and better looking, and sometimes he and Madeleine would spend a quiet hour by the fireside discussing her future before going to bed, just like an ordinary couple.

But when spring came again, Henri grew restless. Henriette-Louise, as she grew, took up more of her mother's time; and Madeleine was pregnant again. At first it did not matter so much, but as she grew larger, and her bed was once again forbidden him, he began to turn to other pleasures, and to find his other life beckoning more strongly. The summer of '78 found him as little at home as the summer of '77.

*

Jemima stood by Flora's bed in the West Bedroom, one hand under her huge belly to support it a little, the other firmly clasped in Louisa's, and looked down at Flora with a mixture of pity and exasperation.

‘He's a lovely baby, Flora,' she said coaxingly. 'Wouldn't you like to hold him for a moment?’

She gave a meaningful jerk of her head towards the new little nursery maid, a fourteen-year-old called Jenny, brought in to help Rachel now that Alison had been promoted to governess. Jenny took a hasty step forward and lifted up Flora's baby invitingly, and even, in her anxiety to help, gave him a little shake, as one might shake a rattle at a child, but Flora took no notice. Propped on her pillows, her hair tangled, her face pale, she continued to read - or, Jemima suspected, not to read - her novel. Little Louisa looked from her mother to Jemima and back, solemnly and silently as she did most things. She gripped Jemima's hand tightly, as if she feared to be snatched away. Alison had tried to tempt Flora from her bed with Louisa, and then had got very angry. Louisa, who was a timid child, easily startled, had cried, and Alison had smacked her. All the nursery staff were disappointed in Louisa, whose dark hair had lightened to an insignificant brown, and whose baby prettiness had turned out to be a false spring. Had she been a lively, spirited child, they would have forgiven her her plainness, but she was very reserved, cried easily, and was stupid at her lessons. Only when clutching Jemima's hand, or sitting on Allen's lap, and having nothing demanded of her was she happy.

Jemima freed her hand now to take the baby from Jenny. He was a bonny baby, big and well fleshed and placid, and Jemima held him to her for a moment and smiled down into his face, just for the pleasure of it. Then she sat on the edge of Flora's bed and offered her the child again.

‘Flora, hold him for a moment,' she said, and Flora sighed, put her book down, and took the baby with a reluctance that almost amounted to aversion. 'See, he is lovely, isn't he?' Jemima coaxed. Flora looked at him blankly. 'Come, be a little enthusiastic,' she muttered. ‘You look as though you were inspecting him for blight.’

It almost raised a smile from Flora. She actually met Jemima's eyes for a moment and said, 'I'm not very good with babies, that's all. Some people aren't, you know.'

‘You don't have to be good with him. We have nursery maids for that. You only have to notice him a little. Come, Flora, he's six weeks old, and you haven't even thought of a name for him yet.'