His attitude towards Marie-Claude was one of dislike and contempt, and being the man he was, he took no great pains to hide it.
He came back from Paris with the depressing news that the city was not yet settling down, although it would do so in time. The house had been destroyed with everything in it. Rioters must have set fire to it.
“All part of the whole stupid business,” he said angrily.
So I would have nowhere to go in Paris. Perhaps I should go back to England for a while. I could stay with Clare. I presumed that my letter had not reached her as I still had had no reply.
It was late afternoon of a lovely May day. The boys were playing somewhere in the castle precincts. I had been working all the morning and some of the afternoon on the manuscripts, as it was such a good light. I was in a peaceful frame of mind as I often was after a day’s work, feeling pleasantly tired and immensely satisfied with the work I had done. I had, that afternoon, thought of a new way to get the Venetian red and cobalt blue which I needed. I was looking forward to the next day when I should be able to test my new method.
I had gone outside the Loge for it was a lovely balmy day and I was sitting on the grass near the moat deep in thought when I heard one of the maids calling my name.
I jumped up and went to her.
“Oh Madame Collison, there is a lady come to the castle. She is asking for you.”
I turned. Another maid was coming towards me and with her a woman. I could not believe my eyes.
“Kate!” she cried.
I ran to her and we were in each other’s arms.
“Is it really you, Clare?”
She nodded.
“No doubt of it. I had to see you. It’s been so difficult to get news. But your letter came … at last. it was a long time getting to me, I could see from the date … But it told me where to come, so I didn’t trust another letter. I came.”
We clung together again, laughing, almost crying.
The two maids watched us.
I said: “It’s all right. This is my stepmother.”
The one who had brought her set down her travelling bag inside her and they slipped away together.
“I got a lift from the station in a sort of fly,” said Clare.
“It was hard making myself understood.”
“Has it been a difficult journey?”
We were gazing at each other, talking trivialities because we were too moved for anything else.
“Come into the Loge,” I said.
“This is where we live … temporarily.”
“My dear Kate! Whatever has it been like? I was so worried. I kept telling myself that it was a good thing your father had gone. He would have been half crazy with anxiety.”
“It has been a very difficult time, Clare.” I took her bag in my hand and opened the door of the Loge.
“You see,” I said, ‘it is separate from the castle, but part of it . ”
“And how long have you been here?”
“We came directly after the siege of Paris. We were lucky to get out…”
“Thank God you are safe.”
“Oh yes, we were fortunate. My poor friend Nicole St. Giles you met her—was killed during the bombardment.”
“How dreadful! And … Kendal?”
“Kendal is all right. We suffered a great deal during the siege, as you can imagine. We almost died of starvation.”
“I thought of you constantly. I tried to get in touch, but there was no way of getting communications across the Channel.”
“I know. It was to be expected with France at war. But never mind that now. You’re here, Glare, and I am so glad to see you. Are you hungry?
Can I get you some coffee. The boys are playing together somewhere. ”
The boys? “
“Oh yes … the son of the Baron and the Princesse … William. He and Kendal are good friends.”
“Is it all right for me to be here?”
“But, of course. You can stay at the Loge. There is plenty of room.”
“Are you working here?”
“Yes. I am restoring some manuscripts and I have painted a miniature of William … the boy I was telling you about.”
“The Baron’s son, you say. And he and Kendal get along well together?”
“Oh yes.”
“Did you come straight her from Paris? This chateau is the first place you came to when you first arrived in France … you and your father?”
“Oh yes, we came here. After the siege the Baron brought us back here.”
“What was he doing in Paris?”
“He was there on business. He saved Kendal’s life. You’ve no idea what it was like. You see, the Prussians were bombarding Paris and Kendal would have been crushed to death if the Baron had not been there just at the right moment to protect him from the falling masonry. The Baron was injured and I looked after him , . and then as soon as the siege was over we got out. There was nowhere else for us to go but here. It is difficult to explain …”
“And you met him just by chance in Paris … just at the moment when Kendal was in danger. How wonderful and how exciting that he should happen to have been there.”
“It was a blessing that he was. We might never have go out of Paris if he hadn’t helped us and brought us here. The city got worse after we left. There was fighting and rioting and setting fire to buildings.
The house where we were was destroyed by fire. “
“My poor Kate! I’ve thought of you so much. It’s been so lonely. I promised myself that as soon as it was possible I would get to you. I realized it was no use just writing, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to get your letter … although I did receive it long after you had written in.”
“Let me make that coffee,” I said, ‘and then we can talk. “
We did. I found it difficult to explain what had happened and quite clearly she continued to think that it was the oddest coincidence that the Baron should have happened to be on the spot when Kendal was in danger. I guessed how her mind was working. My father had suspected that the Baron was Kendal’s father and it may have been that he had discussed this possibility with Clare. After all, she had been his wife.
I could see that she really believed the Baron had been with me in Paris and that she was carefully wording her questions to avoid embarrassment.
Then I wanted to hear what she had to tell me.
“A very different story from yours, Kate,” she said.
“I have been so lonely since your father … went. It was like the end of everything. We were so fond of each other, right from the first.”
“I know. You were wonderful to him. He told me so. I am so glad you found each other. You were a great comfort to him.”
“Not enough,” she answered. Her lips trembled and there were tears in her eyes.
“I often wonder if I did right. You see, I ought to have made it so that he could be happy … even though he was getting blinder every day. But he couldn’t face it, Kate. His eyes had meant so much to him, even more than they do to most other people. He had always loved looking at things and he saw’ them so much more clearly than most people. You know what I mean because you are the same. He just could not face the future, Kate.”
“No. There was nothing you could have done more than you did. I understand how he felt. His work had been his life. I shall never forget his misery when he first told me. Then after a while I thought that even though he couldn’t do the close work he’d been doing all his life, he would be able to paint… at least for a while.”
“But he was losing his sight completely, Kate. In a few months he would have been totally blind. Oh, I do hope I did the right thing by him. I think of it often. I torment myself, Was there something else I could have done … or left undone?”
“You mustn’t distress yourself, Clare. You did everything for him. You made him happier than he could possibly have been without you.”
“I like to think so. I wake up in the
night and tell myself that.”
“Dear Clare, you mustn’t brood on it. Remember the happy times you shared with him. It must have come over him suddenly … like a dark cloud. Oh, I can imagine it. He couldn’t sleep towards the end, could he? That meant he was worried. Then I imagine in a fit of depression he just took the overdose …”
“That was how it happened.”
“You have to forget, Clare.”
She brightened.
“I try to. I want to. Now I must tell you what has happened. He left everything to me, Kate, except the miniatures. Even the house he left to me. He said:
“Kate’s all right. She’ll be able to look after herself. She won’t want to come back to England.” But the miniatures are yours, Kate. I have had them put into the bank for safety. I thought they should be valued too. They are worth a small fortune . even more than your father believed them to be worth. He talked a great deal to me. He said: “If ever she should happen to fall on lean times, she’ll have the miniatures. She could sell them singly, if necessary, and live for two or three years on the price she would get for one of them.” He was a very practical man in some ways, when he was planning for those he loved, for instance. You don’t mind his leaving the house to me, I hope? “
“My dear Clare, I’m glad he did.”
“There wasn’t a lot else. He had saved a little, and you will know that he kept the family going on what his work brought in. He left that little bit to me with the house. It is enough for me to live on, simply, of course.”
“Then you are quite comfortable?”
She nodded.
“I can manage. But what I want to say is that Collison House is your home, Kate. I don’t look on it as my house. It was in your family for years. It’s yours, Kate, as well as mine, and if at any time you wanted to come there… Well, in short, it’ll always be your home as well as mine.”
So we talked, and in time Kendal came running in. He was very interested to see that we had a caller. I explained who Clare was, for he had been too young to remember when she came to Paris.
I was proud because I could see that she thought him a very fine boy.
Jeanne returned. She remembered Clare and I explained that she had come to stay with us for a while. Jeanne was pleased to see her and Clare was very happy to get such a warm welcome from everyone.
Jeanne cooked a meal for us and we all sat round the table talking Kendal being allowed to stay up as it was a special occasion.
There was an extra bedroom in the Loge, so accommodating Clare was an easy matter. Jeanne made up the bed and when I took Clare to her room I kissed her tenderly and told her how pleased I was that she had come.
I said goodnight and left her, but I lay awake a long time that night.
Clare’s coming had made me think of my father and as I mourned him afresh I kept thinking of what state of mind he must have been in when he had decided to take his life.
Then a thought struck me suddenly.
Clare’s coming had brought my solution. I could leave France with her.
I could go back to Collison House and make my life there. And if I could not attract rich sitters, I had a small fortune waiting for me in the miniatures. I knew the value of them now. Some of the sixteenth-century ones mus^ individually, be worth a great deal of money. “
Suppose I sold one . or even two . to give me enough money to set up a studio in London. I did not want to sell any of them, of course, but if it were necessary I must do so.
It was a way out.
Until now I had believed the situation was insoluble. It was no longer so. I no longer had the excuse to stay here for the sake of Kendal because we had nowhere else to go.
We had. Clare’s coming had opened up a way out.
Clare’s arrival caused quite a flurry of excitement at the castle.
When I went over the following morning to work on the manuscripts, a message from the Princesse awaited me. Would I go to her room? She wished to speak to me.
She was lying in bed she never rose very early and was propped up with pillows. A cup of chocolate was by her bed.
"I hear you have a visitor from England,” she said.
“Yes, my stepmother.”
“I did not know you had a stepmother. You didn’t tell me when you came to paint me.”
I was surprised that she should remember so much about me.
“I did not have one at the time,” I explained.
“She married my father afterwards.”
“She is … not an old woman?”
“No, quite young. A few years older than I …”
“She sought you here?”
“Yes, I wrote to her from here soon after I came. I knew she would be anxious about what was happening to me in Paris. My letter took a long time to reach her but she finally received it and instead of writing she decided to come and see me.”
“She sounds … adventurous.”
“Well, I’d hardly say that. But she would go to a great deal of trouble for people she cared about.”
“So she cares much for you?”
“I think so.”
“There is a tradition that stepmothers never like children of the first marriage.”
I laughed.
“Clare is not in the least like the traditional stepmother.
She is more like a sister. She has been a friend of mine from the moment I met her, which was before I came to France. “
“You must allow me to meet her.”
“I will bring her to see you, if I may.”
“This afternoon. I am eager to meet your stepmother.”
“What time would you like me to come?”
“Four o’clock. After I have had my rest.”
“I am sure she will be delighted to meet you.”
“Is she going to stay long?”
“I don’t know. She arrived only yesterday. We had so much to talk about. We hardly stopped all last evening.”
“What of your father? Did he not come with her?”
“My father is dead.”
“Dead? Oh yes, I remember I did hear something of it. He was going blind. Such cruel things happen to people …” She looked melancholy for a moment; then she brightened.
“Yes, bring her to me this afternoon. I want very much to meet her.”
The meeting between the Princesse and Clare was an immediate success.
Clare’s luminous brown eyes were full of compassion and in a very short time the Princesse was telling her other invalidism, which was a subject very dear to her heart.
She explained to Clare that this was not one other good days. I had heard this many times before and although I had expressed sorrow at her indisposition, I had never been able to imply very great sympathy, for I had always felt that she made a fetish of her illnesses and if only she would not concentrate so wholeheartedly on them, she would be much better.
Clare, however, had always had immediate sympathy for lame ducks. She was truly compassionate towards them, and they, sensing her sympathy to be genuine, were drawn towards her.
Thus it was with Clare and the Princesse, and after a very short time Clare was receiving detailed accounts of the Princesse’s afflictions.
Clare admitted that she too had the occasional headache or had done until she had found a miraculous cure. It was a herb concoction which she made herself. She never travelled without it. Perhaps she could persuade the Princesse to try a dose. The Princesse declared that she would be delighted.
“I could hand it in at the castle tomorrow,” said Clare.
“Oh, but you must bring it to me yourself,” was the Princesse’s reply.
Clare said it would give her the greatest pleasure.
“I hope that you will plan to stay here a little while,” said the Princesse, ‘and do not intend to rush away quickly. “
“How kind and hospitable everyone is!” cried Clare.
“I had to come to see how Kate was. I could not bear the suspens
e any longer. ‘ll is so kind of you to let her stay here … and now to be so welcoming to me.”
“My husband, the Baron, arranged for the occupation of the Loge.”
There was a sharp note in her voice which I believed Clare had noticed.
“Yes. Kate told me how it was … how they came from Paris.” v “They were in a sad state when they arrived here.”
“But completely recovered now,” said Clare, smiling at me.
“They have such good health,” the Princesse sighed. I thought: She is working round to her favourite topic again.
“It would have killed me,” she added.
“Good health is one of the best gifts fate can bestow,” said Clare.
It was small wonder that we all liked Clare. She had the gift of being whatever her companions wished her to be at the time. With my father she had talked art and learned a little about it; with me she discussed my predicament and the best way out of it; and with the Princesse it would have appeared that illness and its remedies were of greater interest to her than anything else.
“You have been a great success with the lady,” I said as we came out of the castle and made our way to the Loge.
“Poor Princesse,” she said.
“She’s a very unhappy woman. That is why she concerns herself so wholeheartedly with her ailments.”
“One would have thought you had given a life time’s study to them this afternoon.”
“Well, she wanted to talk about them. I understand that. She wanted to pour out her troubles. Of course, that’s not the real trouble, is it?
There’s something deeper than that. I don’t think she is very happy . with her Baron. “
“You are a student of human nature, Clare.”
“Perhaps. You see, I like people. I care about them. I like to know why they act as they do. If I can, I like to do something for them.”
“Well, you did something for her this afternoon. I have rarely seen her so animated. She really took to you.”
“I shall visit her if she wants me to, and if she will talk to me and there is anything I can do to help her … I’ll be glad.”
The Demon Lover Page 33