Zipporah's Daughter (Knave of Hearts) (19 page)

As soon as I was dressed I went down to the stables. As I approached I saw a man just about to go in. I saw the back of him only but it was enough to show me that he was not one of our men.

I called out: ‘Just a moment … ’

He disappeared into the stables and had apparently not heard me. I guessed he was Lisette’s groom and about to saddle his horse and be off. I wanted him to be given some food to take with him and was going to suggest he went to the kitchens to get it.

I glanced inside the stables but I could not see him anywhere, and just at that moment I heard someone walking across the yard. It was the chief groom, Leroux. I went to meet him.

‘Good morning, Leroux,’ I said. ‘Did you look after the groom who escorted the lady who came yesterday?’

‘Oh yes, Madame,’ was the answer. ‘He had a good bed for the night and his supper.’

‘I believe he plans to go today. I saw him go into the stables but when I looked in I couldn’t see him. I thought he might like something to take with him to eat on the journey … some meat pie or something. And also perhaps he would like to rest here a day before starting out. He has a long way to go.’

‘He seemed set on going early, Madame.’

‘I dare say he has his reasons. But I do think we ought to give him some food to take with him. He must be somewhere in the stables. I saw him go in.’

‘I’ll find him, Madame, and tell him what you say.’

Just at that moment we heard the clatter of hoofs and a rider came out of the stables.

‘Ho there!’ called Leroux.

But the rider took no notice and went on.

‘He didn’t see us,’ said Leroux.

‘He didn’t appear to hear you call to him either.’

‘Hard of hearing perhaps, Madame.’

‘He certainly behaved rather oddly.’

‘Well, he’s on his way now, Madame. Too late to stop him and offer him anything.’

‘I’m surprised he didn’t see us here and make some acknowledgement.’

Leroux scratched his head and walked into the stables. I went straight up to Lisette’s rooms. She was still in bed, looking very pretty with her fair curls tousled and the sleep in her eyes.

‘You were very tired,’ I said.

‘Exhausted,’ she answered. ‘Oh, I can’t tell you how good it is to be here … in a place like this … with you … ’

‘You have had a terrible time.’

‘Poor Jacques! I can’t forget the sight of him … falling down with all those dreadful people attacking him. And yet … I might still be there … ’

‘You’ve got to forget that,’ I said. ‘It will do you no good to go on remembering. By the way, that’s rather an odd groom you brought with you. I spoke to him and he didn’t answer. Is he deaf?’

She hesitated for a moment and then said: ‘Yes … I think he is, but he won’t admit it.’

‘I called to him and he didn’t answer. I was sure he went into the stables and when I looked in I couldn’t see him.’

‘Did you go right in?’

‘Oh no … ’

‘I expect he was bending down examining his horse’s shoe or something. He thinks a lot of his horses. And he has gone, has he?’

‘Yes. He didn’t look round when he came out of the stables. Leroux called to him but he just rode straight on.’

‘He was in a hurry to get back. They wanted him to return as soon as possible. It was good of them to let him come with me when they couldn’t really spare him.’

I was thinking of the man and something suddenly struck me.

‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘I think I’ve seen him somewhere before.’

‘Where could you have seen him?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just a hazy sort of idea.’

‘We all have doubles somewhere on earth, they say. I’d love to meet mine, wouldn’t you?’

She was laughing, looking so much like the girl I had known and been fond of.

I said with heartfelt fervour: ‘Oh, Lisette, I am so glad you have come here.’

It was a great joy to have Lisette with me. She changed my days. She herself dispersed any awkwardness which might have arisen through her presence in the house by installing herself as my lady’s maid.

‘A lady in your position should certainly have one,’ she said, ‘and who could perform those necessary tasks better than I.’

She herself refused to take meals with us, which was what I had wanted although I had guessed there might be protests from Charles about this. I knew that he did not greatly like the idea of Lisette’s being treated as a member of the family, which was what I really wanted; I knew, too, that Lisette was very conscious of her position as she always had been at Aubigné and that it had rankled with her that she was not on the same footing as Sophie and I had been. I wanted to treat her as one of us but she would not have it.

She and Louis-Charles had their meals in a small room adjoining her apartment and she would go to the kitchens and take it up with her so that none of the servants waited on her.

I said this was a lot of nonsense at first, but I did realize that even in an easy-going household like that of the Tourvilles there would have been resentments and attitudes perhaps among some of the higher servants.

Lisette was tactful; she was reserved with members of the family and it was only when she and I were alone together that she became her old vivacious self.

It was an ideal arrangement for Louis-Charles, who had no inhibitions such as those which plagued his mother, and he shared Charlot’s nursery, being an excellent companion for him, and the two boys played and fought happily together.

There was no objection from my parents-in-law. Charles’s father spent most of his time in his apartments and his mother was with him a good deal; she had always been very affable to me and although they seemed rather colourless, I was grateful to be left to my own devices and to be given a free hand in the household. Amélie was immediately attracted to Lisette, who did her hair for her in such a manner as delighted her, and they spent a great deal of time discussing the trousseau together. With Amélie’s coming wedding the main concern of the household, Lisette’s arrival passed off without too much attention being called to it and Lisette settled in comfortably and easily. I told her she looked like a pretty kitten when she lay in her bed stretching herself in a rather feline way, which was a habit of hers.

‘Purring away now that I have a comfortable home and am sure of my dish of cream every day,’ she said, laughing at me.

She changed my life completely. The tedious days of pregnancy had become full of laughter. We talked of the past most of the time and the only occasions when I was sad were when I remembered Sophie.

There was a great deal of talk at that time about the American colonists who were in conflict with the English government over taxes which were, some said, being unfairly imposed. Charles said it was clear that there would soon be war between England and her colonists if the English did not come to their senses.

He took a delight in denigrating the English, which I knew was partly in fun, but I refused to take part in these discussions. In any case my thoughts were with my child who would soon be making an appearance.

The winter was passing and we were in February when my confinement began.

Lisette was constantly with me. She had no particular flair for nursing but her high spirits did me more good than anything.

And in due course my child was born. I was delighted this time to have a girl and Charles was overjoyed. We discussed her name and finally decided that she should be called Claudine.

I
WAS SO ABSORBED
with my baby that I did not take much interest in what was happening in the outside world. My great pleasure was in the nursery, where the new baby was received with awe by Chariot and Louis-Charles. Claudine was a noisy baby with a good pair of lungs and from the first seemed to know what she wanted.

‘She’s different from Monsieur Charlot,’ said the nurse. ‘A will of her own, that one.’

She had been born rather an ugly baby but grew more beautiful every day. She had dark fluffy hair and quite a lot of it for one so young and eyes that were of a vivid blue.

We all adored her and when she cried it was a charming sight to see Charlot at the side of her cradle murmuring: ‘Hush! Hush! Charlot is here.’

I was very happy with my children.

Charles talked of little else but the trouble between England the colonists. At first I thought he was so strongly on the side of the colonists to tease me by jeering at the English. He often reminded me, rather ruefully, that I was more English than French; and this was true, for although no one could be more French than my father and even Jean-Louis, who I had believed for so long had sired me, by a strange coincidence had been half French, having been brought up in England by my English mother, I was decidedly of that nature—in my outlook, my manners—in fact in everything. Even though I now spoke fluent French and often thought in that language, Charles liked to remind me of what he called my Englishness and whenever there was a disagreement between us, he would say: ‘There is the Englishwoman.’

Whether he really did have the Frenchman’s natural antipathy to the English I was not sure, or whether it was done in a bantering way, but it continued and the war made more verbal ammunition to hurl at me.

Without knowing very much about the situation I defended the English, which delighted him and gave him a chance to prove me wrong again and again.

‘I tell you,’ he said on one occasion, ‘this could mean war between England and France.’

‘Surely the French would not act so out of character as to go to war for someone else’s benefit?’

‘It is the cause of liberty, my dear.’

‘There are troubles enough here in France,’ I said. ‘Why do you worry about colonists from another country far from here when your own peasants are verging on revolt and would perhaps like to see a little of that fair treatment you are talking about.’

‘You talk like a rebel,’ said Charles.

‘You talk like a fool. As if France would go to war about this matter which is the concern of another country.’

‘There is strong feeling here.’

‘For the sole purpose of embarrassing the English.’

‘They got themselves into this embarrassing situation. We did nothing to bring it about.’

‘But you seek to exploit it.’

And so we went on.

About the time when Claudine was five months old there was a Declaration of Independence in America and Charles was jubilant.

‘These brave people are fighting a big nation for their freedom.
Mon Dieu,
I should like to join them. Do you know there is talk of sending an army from France?’

It occurred to me then that Charles might be finding life at Tourville a little dull. He was not really meant to manage a large estate, and because I had seen something of the manner in which such places were run—there was my father for one at Aubigné and I had lived on our estates of Clavering and Eversleigh—I did realize that Charles lacked the real aptitude. There was a manager, of course, but managers, however good, did not compensate for the indifference of their owners.

I listened half-heartedly to the talk about the American War of Independence and the part France was going to play in it, but I was really absorbed by the children. Then Lisette and I spent hours talking and riding together and sometimes walking. It was always fun to be with Lisette.

In December Charles went back to Paris and stayed there for several weeks. When he came back his enthusiasm for the war was at fever pitch. He had met three deputies from America—Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee. Everyone was talking about them, he said, and in spite of their extraordinary appearance they had been invited everywhere as the French were so eager to hear about their fight for independence.

‘Their manners were so simple,’ he said, ‘and they wore their hair unpowdered and the plainest cloth suits I ever saw in my life. But Paris is in a frenzy over them. People are demanding that we go to war against the English at once.’

He had been in the company of the Marquis de Lafayette earlier in the year and had been most impressed when the Marquis bought a vessel and loaded it with ammunition and after certain troubles set sail from America.

Feeling in the country was high against England but the King was adamant that France should not become involved in a war.

That was the state of affairs when a messenger arrived from Aubigné.

My mother had news from Eversleigh that my grandmother was very ill and was longing to see us. Sabrina had written that if we could possibly make the journey Clarissa would be so happy and if we did not come soon we might not have an opportunity of seeing her.

Sabrina was clearly distressed, for she and my grandmother had been very close all their lives.

‘Dickon has never recovered from his wife’s death,’ she continued. ‘It has been a great sadness to us all. Poor Dickon. Fortunately he is very busy and spends most of his time in London, so he has plenty to occupy him which stops him brooding on his loss … ’

I wondered what he was like now. What would he do? Look round for a new heiress, I thought cynically. It was of no interest to me now. I was a wife and a mother.

My mother had also written. ‘My dear, I know it is asking a good deal to expect you to leave your home but we should not stay long … just long enough to see your grandmother. As Sabrina says, there might not be another chance. I shall go in any case and it would be wonderful if you came with me. Your grandmother asks particularly for you.’

When I showed Charles the letter he said of course I must go.

Lisette thought it would be interesting for me to see my old home. She longed to come with me but that was, of course, out of the question.

‘Don’t stay long,’ she implored me. ‘I can’t imagine this place without you.’

Charles’s parting shot was: ‘See if you can persuade them over there to come to their senses. They’re in for a humiliating defeat if they don’t. Wait till France gets busy across the Atlantic.’

‘I am not going on a political mission but to see a sick grandmother,’ I reminded him.

‘Then make sure you don’t stay too long,’ he said. ‘This place is quite dull without you.’