Judith Ivory (28 page)

He was ambivalent, wanting to hold her, pushing her back; preoccupied with how much worse the filth was going to smell in the heat of this room. He felt compelled to keep this from her.

She ignored him, went on unintelligibly about worry and fear and “they’ve gone out after you” and “everyone thought” and “where have you been?” Her hands were shaking.

“Oh, you fool.” She was crying. “What a bloody stupid thing to do. We were worried to death.”

He adored her fuss, her concern. She ripped away the last rags covering his face, and made a lovely groan as she verified his identity. She touched his cheeks—in need of a shave; she caressed him with both palms. As if this too were a way to check who he was. She clutched him.

He took her by the elbows and set her from him. “You’ll get filthy, I tell you.” Suddenly, he couldn’t look at her; seeing her was so sharp a sensation. He retreated into the territory of their shared domesticity. “Do I have more clothes?”

“In the front bedroom.”

“I don’t suppose you would find them for me? I want to wash.” He indicated the kitchen. Only he couldn’t resist another glance at her, “Are you all right?”

She laughed, slightly giddy. “Only about to collapse with relief. I’ll get you your things.”

It was then he noticed the small, motionless figure in the rocking chair. His grandfather; watching, overly interested.

“Tu es vivant, Grand-père?”

“I should be asking you that, young man.”

“It’s just I never thought to see you so quiet, except in your grave.”

He received one of his grandfather’s arch looks. “There is doubt,
mon petit,
as to who will see whom in the grave.” The rheumy eyes bore into him. Adrien had to look away. He sighed. He was not quite ready for this. If he could have avoided just one of them, the old man or the woman…

But, foremost, he wanted these clothes, these tatters burned. He began tearing them off and tossing them into the fire. And a bath…Then a meal…There was a bottle of wine somewhere….

The fire began to crackle and smoke; it made an offensive smell. There was nothing for it. The strips of wrapping that he wore about him seemed to take forever to unravel. He had been adding to them all day, each time he could find a bit of cloth, trying to seal out the cold a little better. Then, of special difficulty, he sat to unknot the rags that covered the lack of warm boots.

“She’s very nice. I like her.”

“What?”

“This woman. Christina. Or did I hear, just now, Christine?”

Adrien shrugged. He kept himself looking busy. “I call her both, I suppose.”

“Not your usual sort.”

“No.”

“Why?”

He applied strength and broke the frozen strap; the knot was hopeless. When he risked a glance up, his grandfather’s eyes were waiting.

The question was repeated,
“Pourquoi est-ce qu’elle n’est…pas ton type?”

In irritation, “How should I know why she’s not my usual sort?”

This didn’t seem to disconcert the old man. He began to clack his teeth.

“The man said you shouldn’t do that,” Adrien said irritably. “You’ll make blisters.”

The old relative stopped. He began to hum to himself. His good humor was annoying.

Christina came in with a basin of water. “The fire is out in the kitchen. Le Saint has gone to bed. I think you’ll be warmer here.” She held out some fresh clothes.

Adrien felt strangely shy of undressing in front of both of them; nowhere to hide. But of course she was right. The fire felt wonderful. He sat on the edge of the little table to strip off the last layer of shirt; then he lathered his chest. She did his back.

“Where is everyone else?”

“You’ve just missed them by an hour or so. They went out to look for you.”

He frowned. “When are they coming back?”

“In a day or two.”

He wasn’t pleased. “Splendid. So we are delayed again. The idiots.”

“It’s just you were so late—”

“They had every damn road blocked, either gendarmerie or National Guard. I never counted on so many of them.” Then, catching her worried expression—“so nice of them, actually, to make me feel so important.”

“Oh, don’t. If you make light of this—” She raised her arms. She ran the water over his head, into his face.

He grabbed blindly for the towel. “Christine—” Water sloshed into his lap. His trousers, the last reserve of modesty, were soaked. Christina was laughing.

“I needed to get fresh water anyway.”

Adrien looked up from the towel directly into his grandfather’s face. “What are you grinning about so smugly? I’d expected, by now, a small avalanche of abuse from you.”

The old man shrugged. “I bide my time.” He smiled again. “And I watch. Perhaps I think I might learn something from this woman of yours.”

Adrien had taken Christina onto his lap, where she’d fallen asleep against him. He’d rocked, talked to Philippe de La Fontaine over her head. Now and then, he’d indulged himself in the feel of her hair, her skin against his mouth or chin. She smelled so good. The intimacy of her body was palpable. He played in it, off and on—that inch of space just above her body where there was heat and moist scent, but no contact. Periodically, he would brush his lips against her cheek, or against the smooth place where her hairline met her temple. He petted her with half-attention; he dropped these quasi-kisses on her half a dozen times, hardly aware of it as he talked. The conversation was an old worn-out one anyway. His grandfather didn’t wish to leave France.

Later, he carried her into their room and went back out; a more comprehensive war was waged against the old relative. When he came to bed it was daylight again. He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in days; just the feel of the bed at his back brought a wave of unconsciousness. Christina roused him, however. How did it go with his grandfather?

“Good and bad, I suppose. I sank to new lows, but got what I wanted.”

“Which was?”

“He’s coming with us. Willingly. To live in the house in Hampshire. Do you mind?”

There was a pause. “It’s your house.”

“But you do like him?”

“Yes. Why did he change his mind?”

“He thinks he is bailing me out of trouble once more. It’s his favorite thing. Loves untangling my messes.”

“Which mess is this?”

“The estate in Hampshire. My affairs in London.”

“Oh, those messes.” She sniffed. “You outright lied to him.”

Adrien blinked awake; she was accusing him of lying again. He was lying, of course, but he felt he could defend it.

“Not at first. I gave him my best speeches on home being people, not places, and the rest of his family being either dead, fled, or out of touch. He was moved, but he needed something more concrete. So I admitted that things in London had gotten a bit out of hand, and I was behind on my correspondence in Hampshire, and some of the land was lying vacant when it should be rented. You know. All so large…and I’m gone so much of the time. One minute on that track and I knew I had him. I polished it and embellished it for fifteen minutes, then said good night to a traveling companion. It’s much easier on him than tying him up and crating him across.”

All she said was, “Your own grandfather.”

He sat up on an elbow. “Do you know how important it is that he comes with me? Life or death. To have involved him in something that would kill him….”

“Why didn’t you tell him that?”

“I told him he would die if he stayed.”

“No, the other part. About its killing you if you were to become responsible for his dying.”

He was dazed. Christina had put into words a truth that might have influenced the old man. What a novel idea. Telling someone you love the truth of how you feel.

Breakfast found Christina once again alone with Philippe de La Fontaine. Le Saint had been sent on some sort of errand. Adrien was asleep. Over dark coffee and bread, Philippe seemed eager not only for Christina’s company, but to speak of what she wished:

“She and her father,” he was saying, “had moved in with me by then.” Christina and Philippe sat opposite each other at a table in the kitchen. “Their house in Paris had been part of a large fire in their
quartier,
so they had lived with me for perhaps six months when Adrien arrived. She and Adrien knew each other since—I don’t know—since they were very little.” He made a characteristic shrug and dipped his bread into his coffee. This seemed his custom, just as he seemed to prefer his coffee exceedingly sweet and strong with lots of hot milk.

“
Ah, la, la,
I was so slow,” he continued. “It took me several weeks to realize. I had, I suppose, expected them to behave as they always had to each other. Polite, slightly antagonistic strangers; competitors for my
affection. They had always seemed rather wary of each other; not likely to become lovers. But then, I hadn’t taken into account adolescence, all the confusion of urges that flood—”

“I found them together, in the pantry that led to the servants’ quarters.

“He had, you must understand, already a kind of presence with the ladies. He was very handsome. Something of a dandy. He had acquired a habit of dress, I think, at school. It was not quite English; enough French to pass in England for very stylish, enough English, I think, to intrigue the French girls. And he had acquired a…a kind of polite tenacity: I can still remember seeing him at the end of that dark corridor, wondering, Who was that? That man who so courteously was talking, kissing our little cook’s helper, or so I thought, toward the pile of dry clothes in the laundry.
Ah, dommage,
then of course I realized…

“I separated them, trembling myself. What was I to do? If Geoffrey, her father, ever learned. And there Adrien was, silent…euh—
frémissant de colère,
ah, seething, boiling. And not just from resentment for me. He had, how you say, the arousal of a man; a demi-child with the breathing, the flush of a man for a woman.

“I think I was a little offended. My own Normandy upbringing protested. In
La Normandie,
this is something for a man and wife, not for two children at play.

“So. I explode. Most at Adrien. He is the oldest. He is of her family; her cousin, her protector. I lecture them in the hall, holding each by the arm like naughty children. But I can see. Madeleine reacts like a child in my grip. Adrien, he does not. He takes it, but he is silent in a way that frightens me. Too independent. Too much he keeps his own counsel. If I ever had had any control over him, I see, in that pantry, it is gone forever. So, I do what I can. I move Madeleine down the street to friends.
I explain she must live there. ‘A girl needs the company of women,’ I tell her father—though it is not too long before he is figuring it out: It is impossible not to.

“It was a miserable year or so of the two of them staring at each other across populated rooms and chaperoned parlors. When they are in the same room together, they see no one else. And the looks! Madeleine is blushing every time she catches his glance, and he is bold beyond belief in how he looks at her.

“Then the crisis. They disappear on her fifteenth birthday. Geoffrey makes a large celebration, a ball, in hopes of attracting competition for her annoying cousin. But, of course, he may as well have invited only the one young man, for she will dance with only Adrien. And then, as if we made it happen by dreading and protecting and fretting over precisely that, they disappear.

“When they come back—
ah, mon Dieu,
what a
dispute!
Geoffrey confronts them; Adrien stands up to him, like no young man should to his elder. Madeleine’s father is outraged. First, he says, Adrien must marry her. Then, as the argument heats, he says, no; he would rather see his daughter in a convent than married with the likes of Adrien.

“But, alas, it turned out Adrien really did want to marry the girl. For what must be surely the most dangerous of all reasons: youthful passion. But there were good reasons for the match as well. Geoffrey had spent an enormous amount on Madeleine’s birthday celebration. He had hoped to show her off, to announce by inviting all his friends, everyone eligible, that she was now available for reciprocal invitations. He had dreams of a rich marriage for her. Though not as he’d expected, he got what he wanted. In Adrien’s interests I put the proper amount of incentive before Geoffrey. Namely, Adrien’s English title, land, and wealth, which his uncle controlled for the time being, but which Adrien would
come into at his majority. So the wedding was set for the next year, with a generous allotment bestowed on the bride’s father and no dowry whatsoever. Adrien was sent off on his Grand Tour to keep him off Madeleine until the marriage.

“It seemed the perfect solution to the entire mess. Adrien stopped his carousing, settling all his interests on his cousin. Madeleine thought she had married the king of England and France, both. She had two pregnancies so fast it was cause for gossip—they lost a set of twins, then miraculously had another set that lived, at least for a time; they were not healthy children. Still, everything seemed to be going rather well for them. Adrien came into his holdings; his uncle had been wise and good to him in that regard. Madeleine miscarried another single birth. Her letters seemed unhappy after this. I visited. She appeared a little depressed to me then. And though they didn’t argue exactly, I sensed a tension between them. Still, nothing I thought they would not get over. Then, voilà, I get a letter. Adrien has moved to London. Nothing is too low for describing his behavior there. Then, so much disaster, I couldn’t absorb it all. All at once, Madeleine is brandishing the notion of divorce. I visit. They are, every one of them, sick. The twins die within three days of each other. And Madeleine is in Paris before I am, triumphant with English divorce papers in her hand. Then, at wits’ end; her life a shambles.

“Her father was next to no help. In no manner on earth, he told her, could an English divorce nullify a marriage made in the eyes of France and God.

“I think, secretly, Madeleine had harbored such notions. I don’t think she ever credited Adrien with being truly English. She went to England on a lark. But everything in the house was French. The food, their furniture, their clothes; even their holiday celebrations. The wallpaper on their wall, everything; and espe
cially the language. Madeleine knew no other language but French. She seemed almost frightened to learn another.”

“In fact, she did not learn English until after the divorce, and it is relatively bad”—Philippe grinned across the table at Christina; self-mocking—“Not nearly so elegant as mine.” He reached forward and tapped her hand. “And, you know,” he said, “I give you these details because you seem to want them. Also, partly for revenge: Adrien has been devilish with my life in recent months. But mostly, I deal you cards he would keep from you, because you are the first, I think, who holds a trump or so of your own with him.”

Trump, indeed, Christina thought. As if anyone could trump this. Adrien had flouted everyone to marry a cousin he had known—and probably loved—all his life. How did one overcome that? It was a good thing she was leaving him and this affair.