“He did indeed,” Madame Renazé replied, “and he was so proud of you and made so many plans for your future.”
“Did he ever speak to you of my marriage?” Yola asked.
“He mentioned it several times when we were in Venice.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘this is a city for lovers and Yola must come here one day with someone she loves.’ He laughed and added, ‘not with me. There are so many places I want to take her, but not here, which is where she should spend her honeymoon and be as happy as – you and I have – been’.”
Madame Renate’s voice broke for a moment on the last words.
As she groped for the tiny lace handkerchief that was tucked into the belt of her full skirt, the servant came in with the coffee.
When he had left the room and Madame was filling the china cups, Yola asked,
“Did Papa ever mention the name of anyone he thought I might marry?”
“I think he intended that you should marry a distant cousin, the Marquis de Montereau.”
Yola drew in her breath.
“Then it is true what Grandmère said.”
“But your father also said something else that you should hear.”
“What was that?” Yola asked.
“He said not once but many, many times, ‘Yola must never be unhappy as I was made. She must never be forced into a marriage with someone completely incompatible, with different ideas and different ideals. I could not bear her to suffer’.”
Yola gave a sigh that was one of relief.
It was what she felt her father would have intended and it answered the question she had been asking herself ever since her grandmother had spoken to her.
She bent forward in her chair, her eyes on Madame Renazé’s face.
“Because Papa said that to you,” she said, “because you know how unhappy he himself was with my mother, will you help me?”
“Will you tell me how?” Madame Renazé asked simply.
“My grandmother has told me,” Yola said, “that she has already written to the Marquis de Montereau to ask him to come and stay at The Castle next month. You know as well as I do that this is equivalent to my being betrothed to him.”
“But surely – ?” Madame Renazé began.
“You don’t know my grandmother,” Yola interrupted. “Beneath a fragile appearance she has a will of iron. It was she who married Papa, when he was twenty-one, to my mother. She is now determined that I shall marry the Marquis and I know that once he arrives at The Castle the whole thing will be a fait accompli.”
“And you don’t wish to marry him?”
“I have never met him, but from what I have heard while at school near Paris has made me think that he is unsuitable as a husband.”
“Why should you think that?” Madame Renazé asked.
“You should understand better than anyone else,” Yola replied, “that Papa has brought me up with noble ideals and with the idea that I must have a purpose in my life.”
Madame Renazé did not reply and Yola went on,
“From all I have heard of the Marquis, his life is one incessant round of pleasure. I have not lived in Paris itself, but I have heard of what goes on there, of the extravagant parties, the balls and the masques which take place every night and of the scandal and gossip which frequently end in duels.”
She made a gesture with her hands as she added,
“The Marquis is part of the much-criticised ‘Second Empire’. Do you think he would enjoy or tolerate a quiet life at Beauharnais with no audience except for his wife?”
There was silence and then Madame Renazé said,
“I have not met the Marquis, but I have heard of him.”
“As I have!” Yola added. “And that, madame, is why I want you to help me.”
Madame Renazé looked puzzled and Yola explained,
“I want to meet the Marquis, but not when he comes to The Castle to meet the girl to whom it belongs. I want to meet him incognito, so I can appraise him as a man, not as a suitor.”
Madame Renazé looked startled.
“How could this possibly be achieved?”
“That is what I am asking you,” Yola replied.
Now, as the two women’s eyes met, Madame Renazé asked incredulously,
“What are you suggesting?”
“May I be very frank without offending you, madame?”
“It would not offend me, whatever you say, my dear,” she replied. “Just believe that I am trying to understand and I am trying to help!”
“What I want to do,” Yola answered, “is to meet the Marquis not as a social jeune fille and certainly not as the chatelaine of Beauharnais, but as someone who belongs to a different world, the world in which, I understand he plays a very important part.”
There was silence and then Madame Renazé said,
“I understand what you are asking me, but it is impossible! Completely and absolutely impossible!”
“Because you are a lady, because you have been brought up in a very different way and you can have no conception of what that which you call the ‘other world’ is like.”
Yola drew in her breath.
Then she said,
“And yet you belonged to it, madame, and my father loved you.”
Madame Renazé was very still and then she remarked,
“That was rather different.”
“Why?”
“Because I fell in love with your father and because we knew from the moment we met that we were meant for each other.”
“And so you were brave enough to ignore convention and live with him as his chère amie and make him, as he believed himself to be, the happiest man in the world.”
Yola smiled as she added,
“I can see nothing wrong in that.”
“I am not suggesting that it was wrong,” Madame Renazé said, “but at times it has been difficult, except that I had your father’s love and nothing else mattered.”
“I too want to fall in love,” Yola insisted, “and I can understand my grandmother’s wish that I should marry the Marquis and doubtless as he has no estate of his own that he should own Beauharnais.”
She paused before she said positively,
“But I will not be sacrificed on the altar unless I know that the man I marry is someone I love and who loves me for myself.”
“Oh, my child, my child, you are asking so much!” Madame Renazé cried. “There are thousands and thousands of people in the world who are quite content with their marriage, although it is not the wonder and the rapture of a liaison between two people who are meant for each other.”
“I think you will understand,” Yola said, “that, as my father’s daughter, I will not accept a second best.”
“But – this idea of yours – ”
“I know it sounds outrageous,” Yola interrupted, “I knew before I came here that it would doubtless shock you, but it is something I intend to do. I must go to Paris and somehow I must meet the Marquis and see what he is like when he is off his guard.”
She paused for a moment before she went on,
“From what I have heard, there is not a party of any importance at which he is not present. Therefore it should not be hard for me to make his acquaintance.”
“Disguised as what?” Madame Renazé asked abruptly.
“If I say a demi-mondaine, you will doubtless be horrified,” Yola replied. “Perhaps there is a prettier word for it – I don’t know. I could perhaps pretend to be an actress, but I know nothing of the theatre. But somehow, whether you will help me or not, I intend to meet the Marquis when he has no idea who I am.”
She was silent for a moment.
Then she carried on,
“You may think it very conceited, but if I am in any way as Papa described me, perhaps the Marquis would wish to make my acquaintance.”
“You are beautiful,” Madame Renazé answered, “and, as your father always said, in a way unique and dif
ferent from other women. It should not be difficult for you to attract the Marquis or any other man you meet. But I just cannot countenance your way of going about it.”
“What is the alternative?” Yola asked, speaking in the quiet logical tone in which she had so often argued with her father. “If he comes here, he will hardly see me as a person. He will see The Castle, the estate, the very large fortune I possess, the whole of it in a golden aura.”
She threw out her arms.
“You must agree, madame, it would be impossible for a man to decide in his mind what attracted him the most.”
“I understand exactly what you are saying to me,” Madame Renazé answered. “But I cannot envisage how you can do such an unconventional and outrageous thing as going to Paris in disguise and escape being hurt or insulted in the process.”
“It will not matter particularly if I am,” Yola said. “My business is only with the Marquis and once I have got to know him, once I have talked to him, I shall know the answer to my question where he is concerned. And actually I am very quick at making up my mind.”
“But what if you dislike him?”
“Then nothing and nobody will make me marry him,” Yola answered. “I shall force Grandmère to cancel the invitation she has sent him and even if I have to spend the rest of my life as an old maid I will not have him thrust a wedding ring on my finger.”
“You are right in principle,” Madame Renazé said, “but it is going to be very hard to put it into practice.”
“Then help me,” Yola begged. “That is why I have come to you.”
Madame Renazé put her hand up to her forehead, then said,
“I have no idea and if I did I would be afraid to suggest it.”
“Shall I tell you when I first thought of coming to you?” Yola asked in a quiet voice. “It was when I was looking at your miniature which I found in father’s desk. I had been sitting in his room, talking to him, asking him what I should do.”
She paused as she remembered the intensity with which she had asked her father’s guidance and then she went on,
“As there seemed to be no reply from him, I opened the drawers of his desk and found what I am sure are your letters to him and, lying on top of them, the miniature.”
She saw that Madame Renazé was listening intently as she continued,
“It was then, just as if Papa was speaking to me, that a plan fell into place in my mind, that I should come to you so that you could arrange for me to go to Paris and enter the ‘half-world’ which, if what I hear is correct, has encroached upon the Social world, which used to be so select.”
“You are right about that,” Madame Renazé said with a little sigh. “The Emperor has broken down many barriers.”
“And also the Marquis de Montereau,” Yola added.
“Perhaps – I am not certain about him,” Madame Renazé said. “But I do know someone who knows him well and who could introduce you without his being in the least suspicious as to your true identity.”
Yola’s face lit up with a smile.
“Then you will help me, madame?”
“You have rather forced my hand,” Madame Renazé retorted.
Then suddenly they both laughed.
“This is incredible! Unbelievable!” Madame Renazé cried. “I always hoped that one day I would meet you, but how could I have imagined in my wildest dreams that you would be sitting here in my house, putting preposterous ideas into my head?”
“Grandmère would be so shocked!” Yola laughed. “And so would all my other relations.”
“You are not afraid of meeting them in Paris?”
“I have not seen any of them for years,” Yola replied. “You know that Mama would never have anyone at The Castle and, when she died, Papa and I thought it would seem heartless to start entertaining immediately. We decided to wait until the period of mourning was over.”
Yola gave a sigh that came from the very depths of her being.
It was in the eleventh month of that mourning that her father had died and then there had been a further twelve months while she had been at school.
As it happened, she had not been present at her father’s funeral, when relatives from all over France had journeyed to Beauharnais to pay their last respects to the Head of the Family.
Perhaps because she had been so abjectly miserable and so shocked by the suddenness of his dying when he was away from her, she had contracted a form of pneumonia and the doctor had forbidden her to leave her bed.
She had not minded being absent from her father’s funeral. She wanted to remember him not still and lifeless but full of vitality and laughter as he had been the last time she had seen him.
So she had cried alone in her bedroom and an elderly cousin who lived in Tours had played host to all those who must be entertained after the ceremony.
For the first time Yola wondered now if the Marquis had been amongst them.
She had not bothered to enquire who had been present, for she had felt too miserable and ill to care.
Now she wondered if he had appraised The Castle and already made up his mind to be the owner of it.
Aloud she said,
“Tell me the plan you have for me, madame?”
“There is something I wish to explain first,” Madame Renazé said. “You have spoken of the demi-mondaines and perhaps it is a good word, invented by Dumas fils for the ‘half-world’ that has gained so much importance in Paris.”
She paused before she went on,
“The Second Empire has been called ‘the Golden Era of the Courtesans’, but the women who have made Paris the most talked-of City in the world, whose jewels, whose parties and whose appearance in the Bois de Boulogne have set Europe talking, are very different in every way from someone like myself and my niece.”
Yola looked at her enquiringly as she went on,
“Frenchmen since the beginning of time have taken for themselves chères amies because they have found that the marriages arranged for them by their parents have often been unhappy or even, like your father’s, one of complete misery.”
Her eyes were soft as she continued.
“They have fallen in love and in many cases found real contentment with a woman with whom they cannot appear in Society, but who to all intents and purposes is a second wife.”
“I think I have always understood that,” Yola said gently. “And the King’s mistresses had an important place at Court and were often more powerful than the Queen.”
“That is true,” Madame Renazé agreed. “King Louis XIV, after he was widowed, married his mistress Madame de Maintenon and history tells us that he could not do without her. Many aristocrats have in fact, on becoming widowers, married the women who have supported and helped them during the years of an unhappy marriage.”
From the way she spoke, Yola knew that she had hoped one day to marry her father.
Then, almost as if she pushed aside the dreamlike manner in which she had been speaking, Madame Renazé said more briskly,
“My niece, Aimée Aubigny, is the chère amie of the Duc de Chôlet. The Duc’s wife is incurably insane and with Aimée he is extremely happy. They hope one day he will be free to marry her.”
Yola was listening eagerly as she went on,
“But, of course, as far as the real Social world is concerned my niece is not accepted. However, as the Duc is an extremely intelligent man, she has gathered round her many writers and men of talent so that her salon is one of the most influential in Paris.”
Madame Renazé smiled as she added proudly,
“Second, I am told, only to that of the Princesse Matilde.”
Yola was aware that this was high praise since the Princesse Matilda, cousin of the Emperor and sister of the Prince Napoleon, was noted as being one of the most intelligent women in France.
She presided over a salon that had been called by an accepted writer, “a true salon of the nineteenth century. No salon has ever given France so much as the salon of
la bonne Princesse.”
“I will meet your niece?” Yola asked.
“If you are really intent on what I can only call a daring escapade,” Madame Renazé replied, “I will write to my niece, explaining what you want and asking if you may stay with her in Paris.”
Yola gave a little cry of delight.
“Will you really do that, madame? I shall be so grateful – so very grateful.”
“I hope you will be able to say that to me again when you return,” Madame Renazé replied.
“I should feel very grateful even if the Marquis turns out to be what I expect.”
Then I will write immediately and I should have a reply within two days,” Madame Renazé said.
“If your niece will have me, I will leave for Paris immediately I hear from you,” Yola said. “Although Grandmère has not asked the Marquis to stay until next month, I might not get to know him at once and he might not be interested in me. I must therefore have a little time to play with.”
“I still feel I should dissuade you from doing anything so mad,” Madame Renazé declared.
“Nothing you could say or do would prevent me,” Yola replied. “You are only making it easier for me and, if you like, safeguarding me from going into the wrong part of the demi-monde.”
Madame Renazé sighed.
“You are so like your father when you want something,” she said. “He could always twist me into agreeing with anything he suggested by making it somehow sound quite the right thing, even though I knew it was wrong.”
“This is not wrong, this is right!” Yola said positively. “Right for me. And I knew you would not fail me.”
She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece as she spoke and then rose reluctantly to her feet.
“I must go back,” she said. “I have left my groom, Jacques, in the town and if I am too long he will be in a panic in case I have driven myself into a ditch. The only person he really trusted with his horses was Papa.”
“Your father was a magnificent driver,” Madame Renazé enthused.
“He was good at everything he did!” Yola smiled. “A good shot, a good employer and a good father.”
She saw the expression in Madame Renazé’s eyes and knew that she would like to have added, ‘and a very good lover’, but felt it was not the proper thing to say to a young girl.
64 The Castle Made for Love Page 4