The Chevalier

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘With Clover just back from her first Season in London,' she said to Matt, 'and Frances and Sabina coming to stay, we must have lots of dancing, and that means lots of young men for dancing-partners.'

  ‘You are so thoughtful,' Matt said admiringly. 'But if you are in the room, the girls will still lack for partners, for all the young men will want to dance with you.’

  India laughed, and her eyes shone. 'Oh my dear, I account myself quite an old matron now. They won't even notice me - a mother of two!'

  ‘You're more beautiful than ever,' Matt said, and meant it. She leaned towards him and rubbed her cheek against his, and his hand strayed helplessly and automatically to touch and stroke her. If she were not so insistent that he did his duty by the estate, he felt that he would be quite happy to spend his whole life at her side, kissing and caressing her.

  Everything was done in the best of style, and the food was both lavish and elegant. Most of the servants liked and admired India, but the cook positively worshipped her, for under Clovis's direction, during Matt's minority, there had been little scope for his skills. Food at Morland Place had been plentiful, but plain and wholesome, no canvas for a great artist. This Christmas, inspired by India, he excelled himself. The centrepiece of the whole season's feasting was the collosal Twelfth-Night cake, which was three feet in diameter and decorated to be a perfect miniature of Morland Place in beautiful detail, right down to the marzipan peacocks who spread their paper tails on the sugar drawbridge.

  As well as the feasting, there was of course music and entertainment of all kinds, all the favourite Christmas games and, every night, dancing. India danced with the best of them, and Matt, though he could hardly get a dance himself with his own wife, stood at the side of the room and watched her with pride and love as she flew tirelessly up and down the sets, conspicuous in her peacock-blue satin, with the Queen's Emeralds glittering at her throat.

  India's mother, who no longer lived at Morland Place -India had rented her a house in York as soon as the second child was born, saying she would be happier there with her old friends - had come to stay for Christmas, and sat by the big fire at the north end of the long saloon to keep Sabine company. Sabine had grown grotesquely stout and could no longer dance, though she watched India with a gleam of approval in her eye.

  ‘By God, she reminds me of myself at that age,' Sabine said, reaching with an automatic hand for another sugared apricot from the dish at her side. 'I used to dance every dance once, though you wouldn't guess it to look at me, madam. Dance all night long, when I was that age.' She shrieked with sudden laughter, making Mrs Neville jump. 'Sweet Mary, look at her going up the set with my husband! How she makes him leap! Who would have thought he had it in him to dance so spry!' The couple turned at the end of the set with a flurry, and Sabine waved a sticky finger at them in encouragement. 'I vow and swear, she does him good, that wench of yours, madam. Look at the colour in their cheeks.’

  Mrs Neville murmured something, though she thought the colour in Jack Francomb's cheek more suggestive of apoplexy than good health. Sabine sighed.

  ‘And they'll be up at dawn to go out hunting again, I'll warrant, I used to be the same, you know, before I got so cursed fat. Now it's two men's work to get me up on a horse.’

  The dance ended, and the dancers scattered like spilled beads from the centre of the room to the sides, for a brief rest before the next began. Frances and Sabina came to flop on the cushions beside Sabine, fanning themselves vigorously. They were both going on fourteen, almost women and not quite yet ladies, and they were having wonderful fun. Frances was plump and fair and snubbily pretty, while Sabina was thin and dark and thought herself plain beside her cousin, though her face had a vividness that was far more striking. Sabine reached out and tapped her panting daughter on the shoulder.

  ‘Now, Fanny, you've had some pleasure - you had better go and rescue your poor father before he takes an apoplexy.' She looked across at Matt, standing nearby, and said, chuckling, 'For shame, Matt, to let that wife of yours wear out the old folk!'

  ‘Papa's all right, mother,' Frances said. 'He likes dancing with Mistress Morland.'

  ‘Oh, I know he likes it,' Sabine said, 'but I'm afraid his heart may give out. Now, Master Matt, dance with your pretty wife, for pity.’

  Sabina jumped up at that and seized Matt's hand in both hers. 'Oh no, he promised to dance with me. Did you not, Matt? You promised!' And Matt, looking down into her passionate face, had not the heart to deny her.

  ‘Well, yes, I did say -’

  Sabine spotted Arthur, coming to look for a partner, and called him over with the imperiousness of one who has no more reason ever to be shy. ‘Go and dance with India, Arthur, before she kills my poor Jack. And, Fan, go fetch me some more wine, quickly, before the music starts again.'

  ‘I was just going to,' Arthur said through gritted teeth, while Frances pouted crossly at being made to fetch and carry; but the music began before she had gone a yard from her place, a young man bowed to her, and she was off in a flurry, with no backward glance for her mother.

  ‘Why do you keep dancing with that clown, Francomb?' Arthur asked India disagreeably as they made their sedate way up the line of the next dance.

  ‘Only charity, my dear, the merest kindness,' India said imperturbably. 'I had to rescue him from that fat old wife of his, horrid old creature! How she could marry him, I don't know. She ought to be ashamed.'

  ‘You seem to have his welfare close at heart,' Arthur growled. India squeezed his hand.

  ‘Don't look so grimly, people will think we are quarrelling. Lord, you can't think I would have any interest in a man whose breeches are five years old at the least, and who has no more idea of garniture than my horse! Why, indeed, Midnight is far better company, and handsomer.' Arthur smiled a little, unwillingly, and she followed up her advantage. 'Besides, dear, you have been dancing a great deal with Clover, haven't you? Now it would not be a bad idea if you were to marry her, don't you think? After all, you must wed soon, and an heiress, and a nice quiet girl who would give you no trouble -'

  ‘India, for God's sake,' Arthur said, gripping her hand tighter. 'I don't want to talk about Clover, or marriage. I want you. You know how much I want you. Will you let me tonight? For God's sake, I'm fretting my bowels to fiddle-strings over you. What more do you want?'

  ‘No, darling, not tonight. Arthur! Don't hold my hand so tight, you're hurting me! No, listen to me. I can't tonight. Not yet. You know how easily I get with child.'

  ‘Well, when, then?'

  ‘Not yet,' India said crossly. 'Lord, I do my best for you. You like what we do, don't you?'

  ‘You know I do, but I want you properly. It's killing me, this business of half -'

  ‘Hush, no more, or I shall get cross,' India said, frowning. 'I shall tell you when. Don't annoy me, or it will be never. Now smile a little - people are wondering.’

  *

  That night India sat on the edge of the big bed in the great bed-chamber, her eyes closed with suffering, a cold cloth held against her forehead. Matt looked down at her with concern, and she smiled faintly.

  ‘I'll be all right, darling,' she said. 'It's too much wine and too much dancing. You know these headaches of mine.' Matt sat down beside her and stroked her hand gently.

  ‘My poor darling. It was too much for you, so soon after little Robert.' He looked at her flushed face and closed eyes for a moment, and then said, 'Shall I sleep in the bachelor's wing tonight, so that you can get a really good, quiet night's sleep? It won't take me a minute to get a bed made up.’

  India opened her eyes and smiled tremulously at him. ‘Oh darling, you are so good to me. You know, I think I really would like just to be alone tonight. I think it would do me such good.' She lifted his hand to her lips, and her eyes shone with a trace of moisture. ‘You're so kind to me. I don't deserve it.'

  ‘Of course you do, darling,' Matt said. He drew her to him and kissed her forehead. 'You mean everything
to me, and your health is my greatest concern. Sleep late tomorrow morning. I'll give instructions that you are not to be disturbed, and you can send Millicent for your breakfast when you wake.’

  When the house was quiet at last, India slipped on a loose robe and went out through the dressing room, where Millicent was sleeping on the truckle bed, down the chapel stairs and into the steward's room. The fire was still glowing red, and its glow threw the dark shadow of the man upwards and made his face a clown's mask.

  ‘All serene?' he asked.

  ‘Perfect,' she said, and walked into his embrace. She felt the hard, barrel-shaped body under her hands, smelt the warm, male odour of him, tasted the sweet pungency of his tongue in her mouth. Red and dark the room closed round her like a womb, and she abandoned herself to the ecstasy of her growing desire. After a long time, however, she said, ‘No.'

  ‘What do you mean, no?' She could not see his face, but she heard the cynical smile in his voice.

  ‘Not everything. Not yet. I get with child so easily. Besides, there is plenty of time.'

  ‘Is there?' he asked with the same, lazy humour. She felt uncomfortably as though he had known everything she was going to say before she even came into the room.

  ‘Well, isn't there?' she countered, a little tartly. 'After all, if you want me so much, there are ways to arrange things. Here, in York, in London, in Northumberland. Unless you are too devoted to that fat old wife of yours.’

  The hands on her breasts moved lazily up to her throat and gripped a little, and there was threat in the gesture, though the voice did not change. ‘We are not here to discuss my wife,' he said.

  ‘I know that,' she said. ‘But do you? If you want me, you can have me — but in my own time.'

  ‘And on your terms,' he said, and chuckled, as though it were not at all a settled thing who should decide the terms. He thrust his tongue into her mouth again, and then said, with the dark laughter still in his voice, ‘Oh but you smell of bitch, my lovely, so I'll take my chances. I'll have you.’

  India surrendered again to his attentions, though with a faint feeling of uneasiness in her mind, that things had not gone quite as she meant them to. He ought to be the suppliant, deeply grateful that someone as rich, as beautiful, as high in society, should condescend to him, yet it was almost as if he had had the last word. But there was a powerful fascination about him. Her mind was wary, but her body wanted him, and as long as she could control him, it would be all right.

  *

  The first year of the war ended when winter closed the campaigning season in the Low Countries, and Karellie went to spend Christmas in Venice, where Maurice had promised him 'the maddest celebration of his life'. Maurice had taken his pupil Giulia from the Pieta in October and married her, and they were both still living at the Palazzo Francescini, with the duke and his daughter, and Maur-ice's daughter Alessandra. Karellie was greeted with a warmth which made him realize, by the sheer contrast, how lonely his life was.

  ‘So how is the soldiering going?' Maurice asked him cheerfully.

  ‘Inconclusively,' Karellie said with a shrug. 'We neither win nor lose. Sieges, withdrawals, tactics. Nothing like the great cavalry charges of our grandfather. I tell you Maurice, soldiering is not what it was.'

  ‘I dare say men have been saying that since time began,' Maurice smiled. 'At least one thing is the same, however - you have your winters to yourself. I hope you may be able to stay for the Carnival, to hear my new opera.'

  ‘Is it good? Are you pleased with it?' Karellie asked.

  ‘Yes, and yes, but I don't know how the public will like it. It is not like what they are used to. But we must develop, we must explore. I please my patrons with their little bits and pieces for their banquets and birthdays, but meanwhile -' His eyes grew distant. 'The problem, you see, is that the strings are so crude, it is difficult to do anything but make a noise with them, and the harpsichord continuo has too little scope. I am reshaping the orchestra, Karel - flutes, oboes, bassoons, even trumpets - they will all play their part.'

  ‘Yes?' said Karellie helpfully, and Maurice laughed.

  ‘You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? But look, here is a page of my new piece. Now, you see, instead of two threads making their own patterns, regardless of each other, as they would in polyphonic music, we have two threads - melody and harmony - running along together, supporting, blending, entwining.' He looked at his brother, his eyes bright. 'Like making love to a woman, Karel, think of it. One presses, the other yields!'

  ‘Now you are talking a soldier's language,' Karellie laughed. 'It all looks very complicated.'

  ‘It is,' Maurice said, 'but exhilarating! It's like driving a four-horse chariot - sometimes you wonder whether the whole thing won't run away with you, but when you have control, you feel such a sense of power!' He turned the page, reading it, hearing it in his mind. Then he glanced up at his brother, seeing him left out. 'Of course,' he said dismissively, 'my former father-in-law maintains that counterpoint is the only true music. He's as stubborn as a mule. But he sent me such a kind letter when I married Giulia.'

  ‘How is she? Are you happy with her?' Karellie asked shyly. Maurice touched the music lightly with his fingertips, as if he was touching her face.

  ‘She is lovely, and such a help to me. She can play any instrument, you know, and read what I write on sight. If I am not sure of a passage, I have her to come and play it for me.'

  ‘And you love her?’

  Maurice cocked his head a little, not sure what Karellie meant by the question. Then he said, 'You should get married yourself, brother. It's high time you got an heir. There are so many lovely women in Venice, we must see if we can't get you fixed up before you leave for the wars again. There will be no shortage of candidates, once the news is passed that the Marechal Comte de Chelmsford is here!’

  But Karellie only looked awkward. 'No, Maurice -don't. I couldn't. I -'

  ‘What is it, brother?' Maurice asked gently. 'Why, you love women - and they love you. That's obvious.’

  Karellie shook his head. He had no words to explain how he felt about women, how they frightened him, with their soft, powerful bodies, their dark, closed, treacherous minds; how he made himself free from their dark, cobwebby, clinging magic by shutting his heart and mind tight away while he conquered their bodies. With camp-followers or prostitutes, with children or old women, he felt safe, but all the others Maurice, seeing he could not or would not explain, took pity on him and changed the subject again. 'Did you know mother is talking again of rebuilding Shawes? You know that she went home to England?'

  ‘Yes,' Karellie said abruptly. 'I had heard.'

  ‘Oh Karellie, why do you mind so much?' Maurice asked, unlucky again in his choice of subject.

  ‘It's a betrayal - of everything,' Karellie said, his face averted. Maurice looked at him helplessly.

  ‘You're so absolute,' he said. 'It doesn't do.' Karellie turned abruptly.

  ‘You wouldn't do it,' he said.

  ‘You're wrong - I might, I might easily. Perhaps one day I will.' But there was no use in talking about that. Maurice said cheerfully, 'Now you must come up and see the children, or I shall be in trouble with them both. Alessandra has been practising to say your name all day, and I must get you to her before she forgets it -’

  *

  On Twelfth Night they exchanged the traditional gifts, and Karellie waited until last of all to give his to little Diane. He had scoured the markets of every town in Flanders for the right thing, and now as he watched her unwrap the red silk parcel, he was as nervous as if he had been choosing a gift for a mistress. It was a necklace of flat silver links overlaid with deep blue enamel, leaving a clear pattern of flowers in the centre of each link. She looked at it for so long he thought he must have got it disastrously wrong, but then she looked up at him. She did not smile, but she gave him one flashing blue glance that went straight to his heart.

  Put it on me, my lord Earl,' she said, stan
ding up and presenting him with her back. He had to kneel down to manage the job, and when he had fastened it, he kissed the downy nape of her neck. The child span round with a disconcerted look which she quickly changed to one of scornful fury.

  ‘You take liberties, sir,' she cried. Karellie managed to keep a straight face though it amused and touched him to see this child of seven aping the fine ladies of the city.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Principessa. You must forgive me, for it is your beauty which overpowers me.’

  She smiled at once - a child's smile - and held out her hand. 'I forgive you.'

  ‘Then I am emboldened to ask for a favour. Will you sing for me?’

  The duke, watching from his fireside chair, laughed and clapped his hands. 'You have the way to her heart there, my lord! She has been making ready a song for you ever since we knew you were coming. Yes, yes, sing for us, cara.'

  ‘Maurice, you must accompany me,' Diane said imperiously, taking up her stance at the side of the harpsichord, and Maurice slipped obligingly into the seat and waited for her nod. It was a delightful song, and Diane's voice was very pure and clear, but most of all it was the look of her that he knew he would never forget; the way she stood, so erect and proud, her hands clasped just above her waist, her head flung a little back, with the candlelight making her reddish hair pure gold.

  When it was finished she turned to Karellie so eagerly, childlike once more, and said, 'Well, sir, what did you think of my performance?'

  ‘It was more than wonderful. It was divine,' he said. 'I shall call you that if I may - the Divine Diane.’

  She was pleased, and laughed, and put her hand up to touch the necklace. 'I liked your gift,' she said. 'You must come next Christmas too.’

  Her father laughed at that and said, 'What, so mercenary, so young? Invite him for himself, little one, not for his gifts.’

  Karellie, watching her face, saw she was hurt, and knew she had not meant it like that, and said quickly, 'If you command it, Principessa, I shall come. I shall come every year if I can.’