James was enjoying his audience. He continued, ‘The family tarried too long after the Revolution. The September massacres came upon them, and the Marquis realized that he would never escape from Paris. He had often suspected that his penniless cousin had Jacobin friends, and he begged him to take his only child, a girl, to London. De Bourget managed to get her away from France ‒ and with them both went the family jewels.’
Julia caught her breath. ‘The child … what has become of her?’
‘The child was ill, even before she left Paris. She died in London a year later. Apparently de Bourget had nursed her devotedly.’
‘And the jewels …?’ Andrew was concerned, and frowning.
James’s shoulders lifted a little. ‘The jewels? What do you imagine? The whole family was wiped out in the massacres ‒ even the nephews and cousins. The girl was the only survivor ‒ the girl and de Bourget.’
Andrew looked doubtful now. ‘And how much of this do you believe?’
The other man spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
‘That’s the point, exactly,’ he said. ‘The story has travelled half-way round the world, distorted, no doubt, with each telling. And it’s said that de Bourget himself is not to be questioned about it. He neither confirms nor denies it; he expresses neither royalist nor Jacobin sympathies. All that is certain is that he seems to possess a great deal of money, and that he has travelled continuously for the past five years. France was in utter chaos when the Marquis sent his child away. So who can be certain that de Bourget was anything more than a trusted secretary? He might not have been a blood relation at all.’
‘Is that possible?’ Andrew asked dubiously. ‘Surely there were some among the émigrés in London who would have recognized a kinsman of the Marquis? An impostor could hardly expect to live amongst them, and remain unexposed.’
‘That, of course, occurred to me,’ James acknowledged. ‘In the émigré circles in London the story must be well known. Perhaps such a story will only bear repeating on this side of the world, where we’re so far removed from the source. Whatever the truth is, the child’s death put de Bourget in possession of a fortune, and no one else has come forward to lay claim to it.’
‘Has he a wife?’ Julia asked.
James nodded. ‘That fortune wouldn’t escape a woman’s hands for very long. He married the daughter of a small Gloucestershire squire. They were together only about a year. She went on a visit to her family, and never returned to de Bourget. There’s a child, I believe … a daughter.’
‘I see you’ve had a busy afternoon, James,’ his wife said mildly. ‘The information you’ve collected in these few hours would do credit to the powers of any six women put together.’
‘Oh … it wasn’t all from the captain of the Jane Henry. I fancy William Cooper has been talking also.’
‘A fortune in jewels … and still his wife can’t bear him for longer than a year …’ Sara pondered the information. ‘It makes very little sense. Perhaps he stays away from England because of her … or because someone else may come forward to claim a part of the fortune.’
Andrew touched her arm. ‘If you dare to, my dear, you can question the Frenchman all you please. Macarthur is bringing him and Cooper directly across to us.’
With burning cheeks, Sara swung round. John Macarthur was almost beside them now, and de Bourget, with William Cooper, a pace or so behind.
‘Mrs. Maclay …’ Smiling, Macarthur gestured towards the Frenchman. ‘Monsieur de Bourget claims to be already acquainted with you. Surely he dreams …?’
Sara tossed her head back. ‘No, Monsieur de Bourget doesn’t dream.’
Louis de Bourget stepped up beside Macarthur. He took Sara’s hand, and bowed low over it.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I am surrounded by strangers. I trust you and your husband will forgive me for flinging myself upon your society in this fashion?’
He raised her hand to kiss it, and Sara knew that every eye in the room was on them in that instant.
Chapter Five
Some quality in Louis de Bourget answered a need in Andrew, of which, until that time, he had hardly been aware. At first his feeling for the Frenchman was scarcely more than curiosity; then he admitted being amused by the other’s cynicism, his air of having weighed up all that life offered a man, his manner of poking sly fun at the manoeuvrings of the colonials in their race for wealth, and hiding all of this under his mask of polite concern. Andrew talked to Louis, and found what he had long lacked ‒ a confidant who was far removed from the struggle which waged unceasingly for profits, for concessions, for gain. De Bourget returned to Sydney, to stay in William Cooper’s new house; in the two months following the Government House reception, Andrew began to look forward to sharing a bottle of wine with him, relating the latest rumours and speculations and then listening to Louis’s dry, often scathing, comments on the whole of the colonial scene.
‘I despise them all!’ Andrew would declare roundly. ‘Profiteers! Land-grabbers!’
‘Naturally, you despise them,’ Louis answered, with a calculating smile. ‘Most of them are not nearly as practised in the art of profiteering as yourself ‒ and I’m beginning to understand that you have very little time for the second-rate.’
Andrew was accustomed to laugh at such a remark. There was about this Gallic temperament a freshness which both fascinated and irritated him.
‘Damn me, if I can think why you stay here at all!’ Andrew said. ‘We appear such bores to you ‒ so bourgeois.’
Louis shrugged. ‘The bourgeois are prolific breeders ‒ and their children inherit the earth.’ He yawned elaborately, and then finished, ‘Though I must confess that the good William Cooper is a rather overpowering example of the species.’
‘I can’t imagine why anyone suffers your rudeness ‒ unless it’s because your politeness is so much worse.’ Andrew said this dryly, but he was smiling. ‘If Cooper wearies you, come with us to Kintyre for a few weeks. We’re going to spend Christmas there. We could have some shooting.’
A look of animation crossed the other’s face. ‘That, my friend, is something I should like very much.’
II
For a time Sara sat quite still, studying Louis carefully. He was perched on the rail of Kintyre’s wide veranda; he was booted and spurred, and wore a coat that only a London tailor could have fashioned. Occasionally he swished his riding whip at the midsummer mosquitoes that buzzed about his head. He was turned side-faced to Sara, staring down the reach of the river that Kintyre, from its height on the hill, commanded. He was unusually thoughtful, as if he had forgotten that his role rarely permitted him such moments. There was almost a look of moodiness about him, a brooding air, as he gazed at the twilit stretch of water. Over the bush there was that same withdrawn appearance it had worn for Sara from the first time she had seen it. Clouds were gathering, a dusky purple; off in the mountains she heard thunder, and saw a sudden flash of chain-lightning dancing along a gaunt, mile-long escarpment. A low bar of red above a ridge was all that was left of the day. Down on the river some stray sound disturbed the wild duck. They rose with swift grace, silhouetted, for a moment, against the sky, and then were lost out of sight.
Louis turned his head towards her, and she realized that she could no longer distinguish his features clearly.
‘In a week or so, Sara,’ he said, ‘I intend to go and stay on the Nepean for a while.’
Folding the nightshirt she was making for Sebastian, she answered his remark lightly. ‘And who, pray, is next to have the honour of your company?’
He flicked his hand sharply at what might have been a mosquito. ‘Sara, you’re impossible! You imply that I have not enjoyed my stay at Kintyre. You know, surely …’
‘I know,’ she said soothingly, smiling. ‘I am impossible. Put it down to feminine pique. I merely wished to know who was to steal you away from us.’
‘No one,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘At least, no one but the rive
r.’
‘The river! You can’t mean you’re going all that way just to look at the river?’
‘And why not? I intend to travel along the Nepean as far as settlement has gone.’
‘Why?’ Sara’s tone was no longer light; she leaned forward to try to see his face better.
‘I thought that if I liked what I saw, I might apply for a grant of land.’
Sara gave a faint gasp, and leaned back rather limply in her chair.
Louis swished at the mosquitoes as before, and seemed quite unperturbed. He glanced over his shoulder as the thunder in the mountains grew louder.
‘I’ve talked it over with Andrew,’ he said. ‘It seems there could be no objection to my settling.’
At this, Sara came to life again. She sat up straight. ‘No objection, of course ‒ but, Louis, why? What can there be here for you? This is not your country, your background. These are not your people, your customs. Why, hardly anyone even speaks your language.’
He laughed softly. ‘You’re right ‒ hardly anyone speaks it. You do, but you won’t give me the pleasure of it, because you say your accent is bad. Sara, shame on you, you’re cruel!’
And then, abruptly, the jesting tone left his voice.
‘You’re right about the other things as well. But they no longer matter to me. I have no care now who my neighbours are, or what they think of me. England, I have never liked ‒ and I am weary of travelling. So why should I not stay here for a while? If I dislike it more than other places, then I shall leave. I have learned enough to know that it makes very little difference to oneself where one lives ‒ or with whom, providing it is not with enemies.’
Sara was frowning. ‘But land cannot be taken up for you to play with, Louis,’ she said sternly. ‘You must be prepared to farm it ‒ and I think I’m right in assuming that you’re no farmer.’
He chuckled faintly in the growing darkness. ‘No more or no less a farmer than your friend, Richard Barwell. If he can take land, so can I.’
‘It’s not the same thing!’ Sara replied hotly. She knew she betrayed herself in the sharpness of her tone. She knew also that she was rather afraid of Louis de Bourget, for the depth of his cynicism, for his ability to view a situation, and weigh it up for exactly what it was. She hoped desperately that he would let the subject of Richard alone.
‘Sara,’ he said, ‘you’re so feudal in your fashion. Land is your god ‒ you want to see your estates grow, to count your wealth in acres. You would be a small despot if you could.’
Suddenly he flung his arms wide. ‘But look at it here ‒ this great, empty land! There are miles ‒ hundreds of miles ‒ untouched. And yet it shocks you that someone like myself might be given a minute piece to play with. If I choose to farm it, or make a garden of it, who is to care? Or who should say that I oughtn’t? What if I give myself the pleasure of building a house high above the river, as you have done here at Kintyre? A white house, Sara ‒ yes, I should like to build a white house, if only for the joy of seeing it among these dull green trees of yours. And if I tire of my toy when it is completed, why should I not sell it, and be as free to go as I am now? True, the life about me would not be one to which I am accustomed, or one I admire much ‒ but where is one to find the customs of France, except in France?’
‘I am told,’ Sara said slyly, ‘that émigré society has made a miniature Versailles in England. Could you not be happy with them? Or why not in France itself? Many have gone back and accepted the new order of things, or are, perhaps, waiting for a Restoration.’
Louis let out an exclamation of contempt. ‘Those who expect the monarchy to return on the old terms are fools. And the émigrés are a stupid lot of fools bleating together, and taking nostalgic trips to Dover. Besides, I don’t like England.’
‘Then that leaves France,’ Sara murmured quietly. ‘If you are so contemptuous of the forlorn hope of a Restoration, why do you not return to make your peace with the new order?’
His body was clearly outlined against the reddened sky as she spoke; she watched his head tilt backwards, and heard his slight, mocking laugh.
‘Sara, you have been listening to tales.’
‘Tales of what?’
‘Tales of the dark past of Louis de Bourget.’ He waved her to silence as she began a half-hearted attempt to protest. ‘Oh, don’t bother with denials ‒ I know quite well what they say. It’s said that I was once a penniless kinsman of the Marquis de L… Isn’t that so? And it’s pointed out that I spend my life travelling, and that I appear not to lack money. All of which is true.’
He went on talking quietly; the distant rumble of thunder was fairly constant now, his voice low against it.
‘And don’t they also say that I dare not remain in England for fear an heir to the Marquis should suddenly turn up? And that I’m not well received in émigré circles, and so take care to keep out of reach of their power. Isn’t that what they say?’
She answered him levelly enough. ‘Well, you seem to know it all, Louis.’
‘Of course I know it all. Only a fool would not know it. But they who speak without knowledge of Paris in those days are also fools. It was a nightmare of chaos and fear. There was no time for second thoughts about anything. Decisions had to be made swiftly, and within the very shadow of death. They were very brave, those people, and rather stupid. Courage was about the only thing their tradition and breeding had given to them. It seems to me an incredibly proud and foolish thing to allow oneself to be taken without first dispatching a few Jacobins. But courage was the only virtue of my noble cousin, the Marquis. He had no resources, no imagination. Where better could he turn than to me ‒ who had lived out all my precarious life learning to be indispensable to the rich, and knowing from bitter experience the ways of the poor? Could any one of the Marquis’s brothers, or nephews, have got himself out of Paris and to the coast in those September days? There wasn’t one among them who knew the value of a sou, and who would not have betrayed himself in travelling the first half-mile. Those who have scattered gold about all their lives, cannot assume frugal habits in a single day. No ‒ the Marquis chose rightly when he asked me, the humblest of them all, to take his daughter. I knew the ways of the peasants ‒ I understood their minds, and how they could be expected to act. It took us twelve days to reach the coast ‒ a further two weeks to find a boat to take us across. As soon as I arrived in England, I heard that the Marquis was dead.’
‘And the child?’ Sara asked quietly.
‘Jeanne lived only a year,’ he said. ‘Three sons and another daughter of my cousin had also died of consumption.’
‘And there was no one else?’
‘Ah ‒ there!’ He shrugged elaborately. ‘That is a question which has interested many people. Who can be sure that somewhere in France there doesn’t still exist a man with a closer claim than mine? Might there not be a surviving relation who lives in ignorance of the wealth the Marquis placed in my hands? But he also placed a delicate daughter in my hands ‒ and I am owed at least a debt of gratitude. Jeanne died in a soft bed of her own, not at the guillotine. The lawyers may fret over the situation, but I was in possession of the jewels my cousin entrusted to me, along with Jeanne. His houses were destroyed, his estates parcelled out to a thousand eager hands ‒ but the jewels he gave to me.’
Sara remained silent, thinking back over his words, seeking a flaw in his story, a point on which she might question him further. But there seemed to be none. She thought that perhaps he spoke the truth. It was evident to her that Louis de Bourget was at ease in the ways of fashionable life ‒ she was well competent to judge that quality after her years in London as a dressmaker’s apprentice. If he were a low-born impostor, and no kinsman at all of the Marquis, then his manners never betrayed him in the slightest. What man without breeding could dare to be rude and bored, as he often was? Who could wear such clothes as he, and never appear to notice them? His thin, olive-tinted face would have been completely in place among the aristo
cratic ones that faced the Paris mob from the scaffold.
‘And my marriage,’ he continued, his voice low, but still distinct, even against the background of thunder. ‘That is another subject for idle speculation. I have done no worse in that than many men before me ‒ except that my mistake is more evident. She was so lovely she overrode any feeling of prudence I had that warned me we were not suited. She was so young I believed she would mould herself to my own wishes but I was utterly mistaken. She had the will and spirit of a woman twice her age. Until she came to London that season she had never known anything but what passed for life in that huge, uncomfortable country house. The only conversation was hunting ‒ in the summer they languished. This was her only world, and I hadn’t got the wit or sense to see that she wanted no other. After our daughter was born she went to visit her family. It was then she wrote to tell me that she never meant to return.’
‘And you were content to accept that?’
‘The truth is, Sara, that I no longer cared enough about her to try to sway that unimaginative soul. Once her lovely face was out of my sight, I found I was not very much affected by her. She was not to be wooed with any gifts but horses, and a woman who cares only for horses can be a tiresome creature to live with. I imagine it’s considered an everlasting shame by her family to have had her quarrel with me made so public. But she refused to return to me ‒ not unless I found her a house close by and settled to the hunting routine. The proposition didn’t interest me at all. So she lives with her parents still, and we exchange an occasional letter ‒ mostly over money matters.’
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