“I am not surprised that he refused.”
“Florence didn’t like it. He was very powerful. Can you guess what he did?”
I was looking at him intently now and slow horror was beginning to dawn on me. I said: “You want to tell me, don’t you?”
“That minister was at the time enamoured of a woman whom he wished to marry. He married her and snapped his fingers at his master. There was no question then of his being forced to marry Florence’s mistress.”
“So poor Florence did not get his way for once?”
“Oh, he did. He never allowed anyone to get the better of him. Can you guess what he did. He waylaid the new wife one day and had her brought to his castle. Can you guess what happened?”
I stared at him in mounting horror.
“He kept her there for three days,” he said, watching me intently.
“The records say that he violated her against her will. Then he sent her back to his minister with a note saying:
“You were wrong. You see you did marry one of my mistresses.” ” ” What a terrible story. “
He was silent for a few moments, regarding me over the candelabrum.
“I tell you this,” he said, ‘to let you know what my ancestors were like. So what can you expect of me? “
“I knew already that they were barbarians. What happened to the noble Florence?”
“He was murdered later on.”
“Oh!” I’m glad. The story has the right ending after all. The wronged husband murdered him, I suppose. “
“It was generally believed to be so.”
“It should be a lesson to all barbarians.”
“Barbarians never learn that sort of lesson.”
“No, I suppose not.”
He was smiling at me. I felt sick with apprehension. This was beginning to take on a new meaning. Before I had felt I would fight every inch of the way even though the battle was lost. But now . I could not bear to think of what this meant. He was more cynical than I had believed even him to be.
I stood up. He said: “Are you ready? Where are you going?”
“I would go anywhere to get away from you.”
“Poor Kate!” he said and caught me in his arms.
For the first time I felt as though I want to burst into tears. I could see what he was doing. This was nothing to do with his desire for me. I was a symbol. He had discovered that Bertrand and I were betrothed and he had demanded that Bertrand marry Nicole. Bertrand had refused. So the Baron had taken me so that he could say as his ancestor had before him: “You will marry a mistress of mine after all, even though she is not the one I planned for you.”
I believe I could have killed him if I had been capable of the physical strength. He deserved the same fate as his ancestor.
“Kate,” he said.
“I’m in love with you.”
“I know you are capable of every evil, but you are not capable of loving anyone, so there is no need to tell blatant lies.”
“There is no need, is there, for me to say what I do not mean?”
“You love yourself… your pride … your lust … your greed . that is what you love.”
“I love myself, yes … but next to myself it’s you … for tonight.”
I laid a hand on his arm.
“Let me go … please?” I begged.
“So appealing. So beautiful,” he said and he picked me up in his arms.
I lay on the bed . supine . indifferent almost. Violation had become commonplace. My body was no longer my own. I was weary, tired of reiterating my hatred.
I murmured: “If only I could send time back. If only I could go back to the time when I was in Paris. I could go home … instead of coming here …”
“You would have missed the greatest experience of your life.”
“The greatest degradation.”
Then I lost my indifference and shouted at him . my hatred and contempt.
He did not heed me. He just turned to me and showed me once more that I was his to command.
It was morning. I was awakened by the sound of footsteps and voices. I sat up in bed. My robe was lying on the floor where he had thrown it.
Someone was coming into the room.
It was the Baron and with him . Bertrand.
I saw then that this was the final scene of a farce . comedy. tragedy. whatever he meant it to be. This was the climax towards which he had been working.
“Mademoiselle Collison is here,” he was saying.
“She has been here for three nights … with me. Well, Bertrand, there is no need for me to say more. I wish you a felicitous life together. I can assure you, Kate is a most desirable woman. Many will envy you. I myself for one.
And another time, Bertrand, don’t be a fool. Do as I tell you. You must not think because I have given you some independence you can flout me. “
That moment remains in my memory forever. There was a sudden stillness in the room. It was as though we were all inanimate outlines in a picture.
Bertrand stared at me first in amazement and then in growing understanding. Horror . disbelief. realization . disgust. I saw all those emotions in his face.
His lips formed my name: “Kate …”
I raised myself holding the coverlet about me.
I cried out: “I was brought here … drugged … forced …”
Bertrand continued to stare at me. Then he turned to the Baron who stood there smiling evilly . like the demon-gargoyle on Notre Dame.
He nodded slowly in affirmation.
“She fought like a wild cat,” he said.
“But I think we came to an … understanding.”
Bertrand’s face was distorted. I thought he was going to weep. Then suddenly his expression changed. There was nothing but hatred. He sprang at the Baron but that wicked man was waiting for him. Bertrand was at his throat but the Baron picked him up and threw him from him.
Bertrand went down and slid across the floor.
“Get up,” said the Baron.
“You are making a fool of yourself … and before Kate. Kate, your clothes will be brought up to you. Dress and take a little food.” He laid an envelope on the table.
“Here is the payment for the portrait as we arranged, and here also are the tickets you will need. You may leave in an hour’s time. The carriage will take you to the station. All the connections have been checked. I presume you will want to go straight to England for a rest before you take up your next commission. Bertrand can conduct you as far as he wishes.”
With that he turned away and left us.
Bertrand had picked himself up. He was shaken by the fall but not so much as he had been by what he had seen and heard.
I was sorry for him. I could see that his humiliation was almost as deep as my own; and I knew in that moment that I could never marry him. I could never marry anyone after this.
He stood looking at me.
“Kate,” he said.
“He … is a monster,” I said.
“I want to go home.”
He nodded.
“I want to leave this place at the earliest possible moment.”
The woman came in with my clothes and hot water. Bertrand left us.
“I’ll bring you some petit dejeuner,” said the woman, cosy as ever.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“I want nothing more here. I want to leave at once.”
She did not answer but set down the hot water. I washed hastily and dressed. It seemed strange to be in my own clothes again.
I even found the pins for my hair on the table with the mirror and I laughed a little hysterically to think how precisely everything had been taken-care of.
Dressed, I felt myself again a different person from the one in the furred robe and cloud of hair. Peering closely at my face I detected a difference there. What was it a look of worldliness? Eve must have looked like that after having eaten the forbidden fruit.
I descended the short spiral sta
ircase. The great iron-studded door was open.
I found my way out of the tower and down to the room where it seemed so long ago I had partaken of pot aufeu and drugged wine.
Bertrand was outside with the carriage. There was no sign of the Baron. I supposed he had gone back to the castle. The little adventure which had ruined my life and brought him the satisfaction he had needed, was over.
I said: “Let us go. Let us get away from this place.”
So we went together.
Bertrand said very little during the journey. I thought it would never end. We had left Rouen and were approaching the coast.
I said to him: “There is no need for you to cross the Channel. I don’t need an escort in my own country.”
He nodded again.
When we reached Calais, there was an hour to wait for the packet-boat.
I said: “Don’t stay, Bertrand.”
“I will see you safely on board,” he replied.
He sat looking over the sea. Then he did talk a little.
He said: “I’ll kill him.”
“It would change nothing.”
“It would be a blessing for mankind.”
“Bertrand, don’t talk like that. It would be a double tragedy if you gave way to revenge.”
I was thinking: You would never do it. You could not. He would never allow it and he is the one who calls the tune.
Bertrand took my hand and pressed it. I tried not to show how I shrank from his touch.
Everything was changed. I believed I would never be able to shut out of my mind the images which crowded into it, and Rollo de Centeville dominated them all.
I did not think Bertrand wanted to marry me now. I had seen that look of revulsion in his eyes when he had looked at me in that bed. It was not that he did not believe I had been tricked and forced against my will . he believed all that without a doubt. He saw me as the victim I had been; but at the same time he could not forget that, as the Baron said, I had been his mistress.
I could never marry Bertrand. Everything between us had been over since that moment he came into the bedroom.
So for once Rollo would not have his way. The object had been to make Bertrand eat his words. He would marry one of the Baron’s castoff mistresses . so he had thought. He was fooled at last, for there would be no marriage.
I was glad to be alone.
His last words were: “I will write. We will work out something …”
I smiled at him. I knew it was over.
I leaned over the rail looking at the swirling water and I was filled with an angry resentment. I thought of that Kate Collison who had crossed the Channel not long ago setting out on a dangerous adventure.
And dangerous it had certainly been, for I had come within the orbit of that strange man, the barbarian who had changed my life.
Fury seized me. He had dared use me because he wished to show that he must be obeyed. Bertrand must obey him. It had nothing to do with his desire for me, which I had believed must have been great for him to go to such lengths to satisfy it.
That was the ultimate humiliation. That was what angered me deep down more than anything else that had happened to me.
Away in the distance I could see the white cliffs. The sight had a healing effect on me. I was going home.
Nicole
It was a strange feeling travelling through the Kentish countryside.
The orchards, the hop fields, the oast houses, the meadows and the little woods, they all seemed so fresh, even after the summer. They looked the same as I had seen them many times before. It was I who had changed.
People would surely notice. I could not be the same. I did not look quite the same. Would they ask questions? How should I answer them?
One thing I knew and that was that I could never bear to talk of the shameful thing that had happened to me.
It seemed that every day my hatred for that man grew more intense. If he barbarian that he was had greatly desired me, although I could not have forgiven him, perhaps I might-beneath my resentment have felt a little flattered. But it had not been like that. He had merely wanted his revenge on Bertrand and he had used me for that purpose, taken me as though I were some inanimate object to be picked up and thrown aside when he had finished with it. That was how he saw all people. It did not occur to him that they might have feelings . or did it? Perhaps he simply did not care that they had. Everything . everyone . was for his pleasure.
Well, he should not score this time. He had ruined my life . and Bertrand’s too perhaps . but he was not going to get the result he was looking for. His plot was going to fail. He could say that I had been his mistress albeit most unwillingly-but he could not make me marry Bertrand.
We could snap our fingers at him.
But I must stop thinking of him. He was over as far as I was concerned. I hoped never to see him again. I had to think of myself and what I was going to do. There was only one way to act and that was to carry on as though this had never happened.
Could I do that? I would soon be put to the test.
I took the station fly and very soon I was getting out at the familiar house.
There was a cry from within.
“She’s here. It’s Kate.”
And they were running out. I saw my father first and his face was shining with happiness.
“Kate!” he cried.
“Dear Kate.”
Then I was in his arms. He held me away from him and studied me. I felt myself flushing. Was it obvious? But he gave no sign of anything but the utmost joy . and pride that more than anything.
“My dearest child,” he said.
“It was a great success … beyond my dreams.”
I thought: His eyes are not strong enough to notice the difference.
I saw Clare then. She was standing shyly in the background. Some of the servants were with her Mrs. Baines the cook and Jerry the handyman, and the maids. They were all grinning their pleasure.
Clare came forward and took my hand tentatively. I kissed her.
“You look well,” she said.
“We were all so happy to hear that the picture was such a success.”
Mrs. Baines had cooked a steak pie. I had liked it as a child and had been eating it frequently ever since because it was said to be one of my favourite foods. Supper would be served early, she said. She reckoned that travelling whipped up the appetite.
Clare took me to my room.
“Oh Kate,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re back.”
I looked at her steadily and said: “You know about my father now.”
“Yes, he told us all when he came back.”
“What is it going to do to him?”
She was thoughtful.
“Oddly enough,” she said, ‘he doesn’t seem as upset as you would think. It was due to all that success you had. He told us about it. How that Baron was it? had a special gathering and introduced you, and how you were going alone to do the miniature of the princess and how you had other commissions. He feels his talent is a precious gift and it has been passed safely into your hands. “
“You really think that’s how hf feels?”
“Oh, I do. He has talked to me about it.” She lowered her eyes almost apologetically.
“I think it’s because of Evie … and my being a connection of hers. He feels he can talk to me.”
“It’s for you yourself, Clare,” I assured her.
“Evie was a wonderful rock for us, but she wasn’t particularly sympathetic about our painting. She said it was ” very nice” but I think it was only acceptable because it was our livelihood. He feels you understand, Clare.”
“Oh, I do hope so.”
“One senses it,” I told her.
“You must have had a most exciting time. You look … I waited apprehensively.
“Different,” she finished.
“Different?”
“Well… more worldly, I suppose. Naturally you would … travelling and being re
cognized. It has made a difference in you. You look … shall I say? … poised.” She laughed.
“Don’t ask me to explain. I was never good at explanations. When you have washed and changed do go and talk to your father. He is so longing to have you to himself I went to him as soon as I could. He was in his study. Hanging on the walls were two miniatures-one he had done of my mother and the other of me as a child. They were exquisite pieces of work his best, I always thought. He would never part with them.
“Kate,” he cried.
“It is good to have you home. Now tell me everything.”
Everything? I should certainly not do that. I wondered fleetingly how my dear, good and rather innocent father would have reacted to the rape of his daughter.
“The Princesse’s miniature …” he went on.
“It was approved.”
“Did the Baron come to see it?”
“No. I had to take it to him. He has paid for it.”
“My dear Kate, you will be rich. Was the Princesse an easy subject?”
“In a way, yes. She was just a young girl.”
“But a Princesse!”
“She was quite a normal girl really.”
“And the Baron …” There seemed to be a long pause.
“He really did like it, then. Was he as enthusiastic about it as he was about your portrait of him?”
“I don’t know. I think he liked it though.”
‘Wonderful. A man who would not be easy to please. “
I wanted to scream out: Please stop talking about him. The only peace of mind I can have is in forgetting him.
“What about you?” I asked.
“You have come to accept… the inevitable.”
“The fact that you have been recognized makes a lot of difference to me, Kate. I always knew you had a remarkable talent, but I did think it was going to be difficult to make the world realize it. And now thanks to the Baron …”
I said quickly: “Has there been any change in your eyes?”
“I fancy I don’t see as well as I did when we set out on our travels.
It is like looking into a fog. a little way off. but the fog creeps nearer. That was a mad prank of ours, Kate, but the wonder of it was that it worked. If the Baron hadn’t NICOLE i if been a true connoisseur of art, it could never have happened. “
The Demon Lover Page 17