“The hatred is too strong … tempered with envy. There is little that can be done now. If the mob were to rise I would not care to be a member of the aristocracy who fell into its hands.”
I shivered, thinking of him, arrogant, dignified, seeming omnipotent in his own castle. It would be different in the streets of Paris.
“It is the reckoning,” said Yvette.
“The Comte Fontaine Delibes has been a despotic ruler. His word was law. It is time he was overthrown.”
“Why did Ursule marry him?” I asked.
“Poor child, she had no choice.”
“I thought the Brousseaux doted on her.”
“So they did, but they wanted the best possible marriage for her.
There could not have been a grander . outside royalty. They wanted honours for her. Happiness, they thought, would follow. She would have a fine chateau as her home, a grand name, a husband who was well known for the part he played in both Paris and the country. That he was the devil incarnate did not seem of any importance. “
“Was he so bad?” I asked almost plaintively, wanting her to say something good of him.
“When they were married he was not very old … only a year or so older than she was … but old in sin. A man like that is mature at fourteen. You may look disbelieving but I can assure you he had had his adventures even then. He was eighteen at the time of his marriage.
He already had an established mistress. You know her. “
“Gabrielle LeGrand yes.”
“And she had borne him a son. You know of this, how Etienne was brought to the chateau. Can you think of any thing more cruel than to bring a son by another woman to flaunt before your wife because she is unable to bear more children?”
“It is heartless, I agree.”
“Heartless indeed. He has no heart. He has never thought anything of greater importance than the gratification of his desires.”
“I should have thought with such parents, with NouNou and you, Ursule could have refused to marry him.”
“You know him.” She looked at me obliquely and I wondered what rumours she had heard about me and the Comte. Clearly she had heard something, for this was the reason behind her vehemence. She was warning me.
“There is about him a certain charm. It’s a sort of devilish allure.
It seems irresistible to quite a lot of women. To become involved with him is like stepping on to shifting sands. I believe they can be very beautiful, inviting you to walk on them and as soon as you take your first step you begin to sink, and unless youhave the wit and power to withdraw quickly you are lost. “
“Do you really think anyone is entirely evil?”
“I think some people glory in the power they have over others. They see themselves towering above everyone else. Their needs, their desires are all-important. They must be satisfied no matter who suffers in the process of gratification.”
“He looked after you when you left,” I reminded her.
“He gave you a home and enabled you to have Jose and live in comfort.”
“I thought it was good of him at the time. Later ]. began to think he might have a motive.”
“What motive could he have had?”
“He might have wanted me out of the way.”
“Why?”
“He might have had plans for Ursule.”
“You can’t mean…”
“My dear Mademoiselle, I am surprised that a young woman of your apparent good sense should allow herself to be so deceived. But that has happened to others. My poor little Ursule! I remember well the night they sent for her. She went down to the salon and was presented to him. The marriage contracts were already drawn up. Oh, it was to be such a grand match! The Brousseau family is an ancient one, but it had lost some of its wealth through the centuries. His family had retained theirs. Thus the family were gaining a son-in-law of equal nobility and vastly greater wealth and importance. They needed money and there was a very good marriage settlement which far exceeded the dowry they had to provide for their daughter. It was a most advantageous marriage-smiled on by both sides.”
“And Ursule?”
“He charmed her … as he has many. She came to me afterwards … she always came to me. She would go to Nou-Nou as a child who has hurt itself and wants to be kissed and made better. To me she confided her real problems. She was bemused.
“Yvette,” she said, “I never saw anyone like him. Of course I haven’t. There isn’t anyone like him.”
She walked about in a sort of dream. She was so innocent. She knew nothing of the world. Life for her then was a romantic dream. “
“And when you saw him?”
“I did not know him then. I thought he had all the charm and grace which had attracted her. I was to learn later the sort of life he had led. We thought, both Nou-Nou and I, that he was almost worthy of her.
How quickly we were disillusioned. “
“How quickly?” I persisted.
They went to one of his country homes for the honeymoon. It was Villers Brabante, a beautiful house, small by chateau standards, but charmingly set in rural surroundings . quite peaceful . the ideal place for a honeymoon . providing of course that one has the ideal husband. He was far from that. “
“How did you know?”
“One only had to look at her. We … Nou-Nou and I … had gone on to Silvaine to be ready for them when they came back. It was the first time Nou-Nou had been parted from her. She was like a hen who has lost her chick. She was clucking all the time, getting distracted. She would sit up at the watch tower with the watchman looking out for their return. Then they came … and one took at her face and we knew. She was bewildered. Poor child, she had been taught nothing of life … particularly life lived with a man like that. She was bewildered and frightened. Frightened of him … frightened of everything. In two weeks she was quite changed.”
“He was young too,” I said in his defence.
“Young in years, old in experience. He must have found her very different from the loose women he had known. I think she was probably pregnant when they came back, for soon after it was obvious. That too was a great trial for her. She was terrified of having a child. We were closer than ever then. She turned to me.
“There are things I can’t talk of to Nou-Nou,” she used to say, and she told me how she had disappointed him, how she wanted to be alone, how marriage was so different from what she had thought it would be. We used to sit together during the waiting months and she told me something of what she called her ordeal. And now another awaited her: the birth of her child.
“There has to be a son, Yvette,” she said.
“If this child is a son I shall never go through it again. If it is a girl …” Then she shivered and clung to me trembling. I started to hate him then. “
“After all,” I said, ‘it is what one expects of marriage. Perhaps the trouble was that Ursule had not been prepared. “
“You find excuses for him. Poor Ursule! How ill she was before Marguerite’s birth. Nou-Nou was in terror that she would never come through. But we had the best doctors, the best midwife and at last the day came when the child was born. I shall never forget her face when she was told it was a girl. She was very, very ill and the doctors said that if she had another child she would run such risks that could well cost her her life.
“She must make no more attempts to have children,” said the doctors. You would have thought she was a Queen being crowned. Nou-Nou and I cried together in our relief. It was as though our darling was restored to us. “
“The Comte must have been a very disappointed man.”
“He was mad with rage. He used to go out riding or driving and they said he was like a madman. He was in a dilemma. They said he cursed the day he had married. He had an invalid wife … one daughter and no son. You must have heard that he killed a boy.”
“Yes. Leon’s twin brother.”
“It was nothing short of murder.”
“It was not done purposely. It was an accident. And he compensated the family. I have heard he was very good to them. We know what he did for Leon.”
“It cost him nothing. That is the sort of man he is … ruthless. Then he brought Etienne to the chateau … his bastard son … to show her that if she could not give him sons others could.
It was a cruel thing to do. “
“Was she hurt?”
“She said to me once: ” I don’t care, Yvette, as long as I do not have to submit. He may have twenty bastard sons here as long as I don’t have to try to give him a legal one. ” You see how ruthless he is. He cares so little for his wife’s feelings that he brings Etienne here.
Etienne’s hopes are raised; so are those of his mother. They are hoping that Etienne will be legitimized and made the Comte’s heir, but he keeps them on tenterhooks. It amuses him. “
“One can only feel sorry for everyone concerned,” I said. She looked at me sharply and shook her head as though in despair.
I went on: “At least Ursule had her daughter.”
“She never cared greatly for Marguerite. I think the child reminded her of her birth and all she had suffered.”
“It was not Marguerite’s fault,” I said sharply.
“I should have thought it would have been natural for a mother to care for her child.”
“Marguerite soon showed herself well able to look after herself.
Nou-Nou was not very interested in the child either. Her care fell mostly to me. I was very drawn to her. She was such a gay little thing, vivacious, very wayward, impulsive . well, she has not changed much. “
“I am surprised that Ursule was indifferent to her.”
“She was always listless at this time. Soon after Marguerite’s birth she suffered another shock. Her mother died. She had been very fond of her mother and her death was a great blow to her.”
“So it was unexpected.”
Yvette was silent for a while, then she said: Her mother took her own life. ” I was startled.
“Yes,” went on Yvette.
“It was a great shock to us all. We did not know that she was ill. She had been suffering some internal pains but she had mentioned this for some time. But when the pain increased she could keep it secret no longer. When she heard that nothing could be done for it, she took an overdose of a sleeping draught.”
“Like … Ursule,” I murmured.
“No,” said Yvette firmly.
“Not like Ursule. Ursule would never have taken her own life. I know she wouldn’t. We talked of this again and again. Ursule was deeply religious. She believed in an after-life. She used to say to me: ” No matter what one suffers here, Yvette, it is all fleeting. That’s what I tell myself. We must endure it and the greater the suffering, the more rejoicing there will be when one comes to rest. My mother suffered pain and would have suffered more and she could not endure it. Oh, if only she had waited. ” Then she turned to me and gripped my hands and said:
“If only I had known. If only I could have talked to her …”
“And yet when something similar happened to her …”
“She was not in great pain then. I know.”
“You were not at the chateau,” I reminded her.
“When I left the chateau, we wrote to each other. We wrote every week.
She wanted to know every detail of my life and she gave me every detail of hers. She opened her heart to me. She kept nothing back.
When I left we had made this pact. Later she wrote that our letters were more revealing than our daily contacts. She said that we had become even closer through the pen than we had been before because it was so much easier to say exactly what one meant on paper. That was why I learned so much about her . when I was away from her, more than when I was with her. That is why I know that she would never have killed herself. “
“How then did she die?”
“Someone murdered her,” she said.
I went to my room and stayed there. I did not want to talk of Ursule’s death. I would not believe what Yvette was suggesting. That Yvette believed the Comte had killed his wife was without question.
And I knew that the intention of these conversations was to warn me.
In her mind she had put me with those women who had become fascinated by him and were picked up and made much of for a while and before they were cast off . minor affaires in a long stream of such, some of greater importance than others, like the one which had brought him Etienne.
In spite of everything I would not believe this of him. That he had had adventures I knew-indeed, when had he ever made a secret of that? but that our relationship was different, I was certain.
At times I believed I would be ready to forget everything that had gone before. Everything? Murder? But I would not believe he had killed his wife. He had killed Leon’s brother but that was different a reckless, thoughtless act which had ended in tragedy but which was quite different from premeditated murder.
While I was brooding there the door opened and Margot looked in. She was not quite her exuberant self.
“Is something wrong?” I cried, raising myself on my arm, for I was lying on my bed.
She sat on the chair near the mirror and looked at me frowning.
She nodded slowly.
“What’s happened? Chariot…?”
“Is as beautiful and bonny as ever.”
Then what? “
“It’s a note I’ve had. Armand said a woman had given it to him and it was to be delivered either to me or to you.”
“A note? Armand?”
“Please don’t repeat everything I say, Minelle. It maddens me.”
“Why should a woman give a note to Armand?”
“Because she must have known he comes from the chateau.”
Armand was a groom we had brought with us from the Chateau Silvaine.
Etienne had said he was a good man and had recommended us to bring him with us.
Where’s the note? ” I asked.
She held out a piece of paper. I took it and read:
It would be well for one of you to come to the Cafe des Fleurs at ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. You will be sorry if you fail. I know about the baby.
I stared at her.
“Who on earth could it be …?”
She shook her head impatiently.
“Oh, Minelle, what are we going to do?
It’s worse than Bessell and Mimi. “
“It looks to me,” I said, ‘as if it’s the same thing as Bessell and Mimi. “
“But here … in Grasseville. I’m frightened, Minelle.”
“It’s someone trying to blackmail you,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
“The tone of the note.
“You'll be sorry …” It’s someone who has found out and wants to make something out of it. “
Whatever shall I do? “
Could you tell Robert the truth? “
“Are you mad? I never could … at least not yet. He thinks I’m so perfect, Minelle.”
“He’ll have to discover his error sooner or later. Why not sooner?”
“You can be so hard.”
“Then why not try someone else?”
“Someone else! You’re in this. It says ” one of you”. That means you as well.”
I think you should go. “
“I can’t Robert is taking me for a ride.”
Wen, cancel it. “
“What excuses could I make? I have to go. It would look so odd. He’d only want to know why…”
I hesitated. I flattered myself that this was a delicate situation which I could handle better than Margot. After all, I was involved. I had been with her during that fateful period. My mind ranged over who it could possibly be. Madame Gremond . someone from the house . perhaps someone to whom Bessell and Mimi had talked, someone who had seen them favoured and hoped to reap similar benefits.
When at length I said I would go she threw her arms ro
und me. She knew she could rely on me to settle everything, she declared.
I said: “Listen. This is not settled. It has only just begun. I think you will have to consider telling Robert. That would scatter the blackmailers. You can never know when Bessell IS and Mimi are coming back with more demands.” E “Oh, Minelle, I’m so frightened. But you will go and you’ll ” ‘” know how to deal with them.”
“There is only one wise way in dealing with blackmailers and that is to tell them to do their worst.” ,.
She shook her head, real fear in her eyes. I was very fond “J of her and it was gratifying to see how happy she and Robert were together and I often laughed to think how ingeniously she had brought her baby into the family. But of course it was an uneasy situation and while she kept such a secret, which was inevitably shared by others, dangers could arise.
I was rather touched, too, by the manner in which she could shift everything on to my shoulders. I was sure she would be blithely happy during her morning with Robert. She could always live in the moment, which was perhaps a blessing in some ways, but it did sometimes leave the future to be cared for.
At five minutes to ten I arrived at the Cafe des Fleurs. I ordered my coffee and the usual gateau although I had no appetite for it, but I thought Madame would be surprised if I did not and I wanted this to be an ordinary morning. I received a little shock to see the man with the dark wig and the high shoulders walk over. He is the blackmailer, I thought. He has been watching me! But he took a seat some distance off and although he glanced my way he did not appear to be really looking at me.
A woman was coming towards me. Emilie! Madame Gremond’s maid, the quiet sister of the garrulous Jeanne. I might have known. I had always mistrusted those thin lips, those pale eyes which had never really looked straight at me.
“Mademoiselle is surprised?” she asked with an unpleasant smirk.
“Not entirely,” I replied.
“What is it you have to say? Please say it quickly and go.”
“Ill go in my own time. Mademoiselle. It is not you who calls the tune now, remember. It won’t take long to settle. I know now that the mother of the child was not Madame Ie Brun, but Madame de Grasseville, at that time Mademoiselle Fontaine Delibes, daughter of the great Comte.”
The Devil on Horseback Page 29