Queen's Ransom (10 page)

*    *    *

We sighted Château Douceaix at the end of the afternoon. It reminded me a little of Faldene, which, although not a happy house, is still beautiful, standing on the side of a sheltered valley, where fields lie on the broad slopes and trees fill the lower part of the vale and thrust their ancient roots out from the banks into Faldene River, which flows along the bottom.

Douceaix had similarities. Here, too, the bottom of the vale was filled with woodland and a sparkling river flowed through it. If Helene eventually found herself living at Faldene, some of the topography would seem familiar. Perhaps it would compensate for having my cousin Edward for a husband and—God help her—Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha as parents-in-law.

There were a few differences, though. The château stood on an isolated knoll rather than on the side of the valley, and the valley itself was much shallower. This was not hilly country. The slopes on either side were ripples in the land, not great waves, and the south-facing ones were planted not with wheat or barley, but with vines.

The house was older than Faldene, too, with genuine arrow slits in the towers at each end and walls topped with businesslike crenellations instead of Faldene’s merely decorative ones. It also had a moat, which Faldene had not. White swans cruised there, and there was a bridge of the same pale stone as the rest of the house. It looked like Caen stone, which I knew had been used in the White Tower. At court, I had learned to recognize such things.

Harvey and Ryder galloped on ahead to announce our approach, and by the time we arrived, our hosts had gathered to greet us. In the courtyard, we were helped off our horses and welcomed as though we were beloved friends and well known at Douceaix. A tall and courtly man like a suntanned eagle, with strong wings of brown hair sweeping back from his temples, embraced Luke joyously, exclaiming in quite passable English that he was Henri Blanchard, Luke’s distant cousin.

“I believe we share a great-great-grandfather. This is my wife Marguerite.” Marguerite was dark and small and dainty, gracious of smile and shrewd of eye. Her clothes mingled great elegance with great restraint. Pale green flowers embroidered on a cream kirtle and sleeves echoed the green of a plain but beautifully cut overgown; the small, spruce ruff was pure white with a hint of silver thread at the edge. If Helene had been reared in this tradition, Edward would be getting an ornamental bride.

Henri released his cousin Luke, caught sight of me, and was instantly bowing over my hand, taking me in with bright brown eyes. “And this is . . . ? My dear cousin, present me immediately to this charming lady!”

“Madame Ursula Blanchard. My daughter-in-law. She was married to my son Gerald, who alas is now dead. She will give Helene her company on the way home.”

“Ah, yes. You wrote that you would find a lady for Helene. So you are a widow, Madam Blanchard? But you are so young. I am desolated for your misfortune, madam, but also charmed to have you with us. And this is your maid?” He even gave Dale a share of that appreciative smile. Henri Blanchard was one of those men who, quite simply, likes women. His smile sent a pang through me because it reminded me of Matthew’s. Matthew and I had had so little time together and our last night of love had been abruptly cut short by a violent disturbance. Now, though still wedded, we were far apart. It is not easy to live between two worlds, bound by marriage and yet alone.

“My dear,” Marguerite was saying to Henri in French, “should we not go inside? Our guests must be tired. They have ridden a long way and must have passed through unexpected perils. These are frightening times.”

“And my father-in-law has been unwell,” I said, also in French, which produced delightedly lifted brows and another lovely smile from Henri. “We were delayed two days at an inn at St. Marc.”

“But I am perfectly well now,” said Blanchard firmly as we were swept up the steps and into a wide porch. “Where is Helene? I am anxious to meet her.”

“She is at her devotions.” Marguerite’s voice was light and pretty. “Helene is punctilious in her religious observances,” she said. “Never would she leave them incomplete, not even to greet her guardian. We ourselves have not known her long, for she was at school at an abbey when her mother died, and although she came to us for a while after that, she pined so much for the abbey that we sent her back—until we began to worry about the prospect of war, when we decided she should rejoin us. I think you will find her all a young girl should be. There is nothing of the hoyden in her.”

I wondered if I had imagined the faint note of regret in Marguerite’s tone.

We came through the porch into a great hall, adorned as such places usually are with hunting trophies. There were half a dozen pairs of antlers (none of them under sixteen points); an alarming set of boar’s tusks; and the mask of a wolf, stuffed by an expert and displayed with teeth aglitter in a mouth lined with scarlet velvet. But I did not have long to stare at it, for Marguerite had taken charge of me and Dale, and was leading us toward a farther door. As we went, we were joined by an entourage of maids and manservants, bringing the baggage, and several ewers of warm water. This was a house that functioned like the workings of a perfect clock.

It was as complicated as the insides of a clock, as well. We went up some stairs and then were led through such a maze of rooms and passages that I soon lost all sense of direction. At length we climbed some more steps and at last went through a door, made of silvery oak and dramatically studded with iron, and into an enormous bedchamber, with a fan-vaulted white stone ceiling like the crypt of a church. The bed was vast and hung with turquoise velvet, and on the walls were verdure tapestries all patterned with foliage, although if you looked closely you could see stags and foxes and birds blended into the design. Tall windows looked out on the vineyards.

“I hope you will be comfortable,” Marguerite was saying. “Marie”—she indicated one of the maids—“will be in a little sewing room within earshot, and will bring you down to the hall when you are ready to eat. I know the house is bewildering at first.”

“Thank you,” I said. I added: “Does Helene speak any English?”

“Oh yes, certainly. Her mother taught it to her when she was small. Kate was a sweet lady,” Marguerite added, “though we did not know her well. My husband was as much a distant cousin to Helene’s father as he is to Master Blanchard. But Helene is a credit to her parents.”

She was saying the right things. But I recognized the cynical gleam in my hostess’s dark eyes. “What is Helene like?” I asked frankly.

“You will see for yourself and form your own opinion.” Marguerite lifted both shoulders in the fashion of her country. “She is a good girl—oh, so good. Of that there is no shadow of doubt. She will be no trouble, to you or to her guardian. She has been sorely bereaved, poor child. Although so was I, at her age. I lost both my parents in an outbreak of plague when I was only fifteen, and it was a pity,” said Marguerite, without changing her calm, narrative tone, “that the man I was then betrothed to recovered from it, for I was married to him the next year and he was odious, odious. A gentleman at board but a fiend from hell in bed. He was killed out hunting two years later and I wore a thick veil at his burial, so that no one would see my thankful face. It took Henri years to court me, years to convince me that he would not think his wife was a possession to be hurt for his entertainment. So I know what suffering is. I am sorry for Helene but—”

Feet tapped and a skirt sighed on the steps up to my door. Marguerite broke off. A tall, pale girl appeared in the doorway. Her black gown was relieved only by a small white cap and her mousy hair, parted in the middle, hung in two loose loops over her temples. She had rounded shoulders, which looked like her normal way of holding herself, rather than the temporary sag of grief.

“I heard voices,” she said. Her voice was high and thin. “And horses down below. I thought . . .”

“This is Helene,” said Marguerite. “Come in, child. This is Madam Ursula Blanchard, daughter-in-law of your guardian, who will be your companion on your journey to England.”

“Madam Blanchard,” said Helene. She came forward and curtsied to me politely. “I am so happy to meet you.”

She didn’t look it. Her light eyes were studying me with an expression that was if anything inimical. I did my best to counter it, offering her a smile and an outstretched hand. “I am glad to meet you, too,” I told her. “I hope we shall be friends.”

“But naturally, madam,” said Helene, still in that insubstantial, die-away tone.

Marguerite, with the faintest lift of her skillfully plucked eyebrows, signaled: “You see what I mean.”

Aloud, she said: “You will wish to make each other’s acquaintance.Your guardian will meet you at supper, Helene, in an hour. I will leave you now.”

She withdrew, along with her little entourage of servants. The maid Marie observed that the sewing room was “just a few steps to the left, madam,” bobbed, and was gone. Dale busied herself with opening our panniers. I motioned Helene to the seat in the window.

“Let us talk,” I said winningly. “You speak English, I hear.” I switched to English to find out. “You are—let me see—first cousin to my late husband, Gerald. Your guardian is your uncle. We are all eager to make you welcome.”

Helene continued to regard me inimically. She was not a beauty. Her cheekbones were quite good, but her face was too long, especially the chin, and under the unbecoming loops of hair, her temples were pinched in. Edward Faldene wouldn’t be getting such an ornamental bride after all.

“I am sure you will do your best,” she said, also in English. She seemed at ease with it, although she had an accent. “My guardian wrote to me in advance. A letter reached here some weeks ago. He has told me of the marriage he has arranged for me, and I must thank him for taking such pains on my behalf.”

Most of the pains incurred by Luke Blanchard had assuredly been in order to get a cut off the juicy joint that was Helene’s dowry, but I had better not tell Helene that. This young girl, with her curious, guarded manner, had seen trouble enough, in losing her parents, and the brisk, sophisticated Marguerite had perhaps not been the best person to take charge of her. Whatever Marguerite had suffered in the past, I thought that she possessed the kind of personality that is toughened by adversity. Helene, perhaps, did not. I could only hope that what lay ahead for her wasn’t more and worse adversity.

We were both on the window seat by now; two young women, side by side, talking, and I wished that Helene would not hold herself so stiffly. She seemed reluctant to let even our skirts come into contact. In my most friendly voice, I said: “The Faldene family, into which you are to marry, is also my own family. Faldene House, where you will live, is in some ways similar to Douceaix, and there is no lack of money.”

“I am sure of it,” said Helene. “I am mindful of all that is being done for me. I will be as biddable as anyone could wish.”

“I hope you will be happy in England,” I said.

“I think not.” Helene folded her hands in her black woolen lap. “It is a heretic country. I would rather stay here. But no doubt my mother’s death and this journey to England and this marriage are the will of God for me and one must accept the will of God. I have been educated, madam, at the Abbey of St. Marc, where there is a community of nuns. I would have chosen to stay there and take the veil myself had I been allowed. My mother had already nearly agreed to it. But then she died and Cousin Henri brought me here, and said that under my mother’s will, which she made when my father died and had never altered, I must pass into the care of my English uncle. Now he has come to take me to England. Well, the nuns taught me that obedience is a virtue, above all in women. You, and my guardian, and my husband when I am married, can be assured of my obedience. But willingness, happiness; these I cannot command and would not if I could. I belong to the true faith, and to live where an untrue faith holds sway will for me be exile.”

I was staggered, as much by the exquisite phrasing as by the uncompromising sentiments, which were those of a woman much older than sixteen.

“The Faldene family,” I said, “hold by what you call the true faith. You will not be cut off from it.” I tried to lighten the atmosphere. “You put your views very well, even melodiously. Do you enjoy poetry? There is a tradition of poetry in England that you may find gives you pleasure.”

“There is a tradition of poetry in France that has long given me pleasure,” said Helene. “No other can compare.” She slipped from the seat and curtsied again. “If you will excuse me, madam, I must change my dress. My maid Jeanne awaits me. Jeanne, alas, does not wish to come to England. I shall miss her. You and I will meet at supper. We understand each other, I think. I will give you no trouble, I assure you.”

She went out, closing the door after her, and Dale, who had stopped unpacking and sat back on her heels to listen to all this with wide, shocked eyes, gazed at me in wonder.

“No trouble? Biddable? Ma’am, that is trouble with a stiff neck, if I may say so.”

“You may. I couldn’t put it better myself. Well,” I said, “Master Blanchard is her guardian, not me. I wish him—and Edward Faldene—joy of her, I must say!”

Supper was taken formally, in a gracious dining chamber adjacent to the tusked and antlered hall. The table was set in a wide window bay and was a work of art, with a great silver salt in the middle of it, which instantly brought back to my mind the spectacular salts, silver and gold, which must still lie under the floor of that warehouse in Antwerp. One day, I supposed, that floor would grow rotten and need to be replaced, or someone would drop a valuable coin or a precious ring down a crack in the floorboards and have them up to get at it, and come across treasure trove. I wondered if I would ever hear about it.

Both Luke Blanchard and Helene were there before me and had already been introduced when I came in. I was greeted with smiles, and the rest of the family were presented to me. Henri and Marguerite had three children, all of them neat, quiet, and charmingly well behaved, as one would expect of Marguerite’s offspring. A very wizened elderly woman, who came in just after me, leaning on a stick and supported by a maid, proved to be Madame Antoinette, Henri’s mother.