The Devil on Horseback (26 page)

“I tell you she was asleep when I came…”

“I came out and found you with the glass in your hand.”

This is absurd. I had only just come into the room. “

There was somebody else there, wasn’t there? You know that. “

I felt the blood rushing into my cheeks.

“What… are you suggesting?”

“Doses don’t get into glasses without being put there, do they?

Someone did it. someone in this house. “

For a moment I was too stunned to reply. I kept thinking of that moment when I had seen the Comte slipping out through the french window on to the terrace. How long had he been with her? Long enough to give her the dose . to wait while she drank it? Oh, no, I told myself. I won’t believe it.

I stammered: “You don’t know the cause of her death. It has not yet been proved.”

Her eyes glittered and she looked at me steadily.

“I know,” she said.

She came close to me and, laying a hand on my arm, peered into my face.

“If she’d never married, she’d be alive today. She’d be her bonny self just as she used to be before her wedding. I remember the night before that wedding. I couldn’t comfort her. Oh, these marriages. Why can’t they let children be children till they know what life’s about!”

In spite of the horrible fear which would not leave me, in spite of the shock of realizing how deeply involved I was, I felt sorry for Nou-Nou. It seemed that the death of her beloved charge had unhinged her mind. Something had gone out of her. The fierce dragon guarding her treasure had become a sad creature only wanting to crawl into a corner and die. She was looking round to blame someone. She hated the Comte and her venom was directed mainly against him, but because it was known that he had a fondness for me, she let it fall on me too.

“Oh, Nou-Nou,” I said, the compassion I felt for her obvious in my voice, “I am so sorry this has happened.”

She looked at me slyly.

“Perhaps you think it makes it easier for you, eh? Perhaps you think that now she is out of the way …”

“Nou-Nou!” I cried sharply.

“Stop that wicked talk.”

“You’ll have a shock.” She began to laugh; it was horrible laughter, at times like the cackle of a hen. Then she stopped suddenly.

“You and he plot together …”

“You must not say such things. They are absolutely false. Let me take you back to your room. You need rest. This has been a terrible shock for you.”

Suddenly she started to cry-silently, the tears streaming down her face.

“She was everything to me,” she said.

“My little lamb, my darling baby. All I’d got. I never took to any other. It was always my little mignon ne

‘ 178

“I know,” I said.

“But I’ve lost her. She’s not there any more.”

“Come, Nou-Nou.” I took her arm and led her back to her room.

When we were there she broke away from me.

I shall go to her,” she said; and she went into that room where the body of the Comtesse lay.

They were difficult days to live through. I saw little of the Comte.

He avoided me, which was wise, because there were whispers about him and it was likely that my name was being linked with his.

I rode out with Marguerite, Etienne and Leon and as we passed close to a village a stone was thrown at us. It hit Etienne on the arm but I think it was meant for me.

“Murderess I’ shouted a voice.

We saw a group of young men and we knew the missile had come from them. Etienne was for giving chase but Leon deterred him.

“Better be careful,” Leon advised.

“This could start a riot. Ignore it.”

They need to be taught a lesson. “

“We must take care,” said Leon, ‘that they do not attempt to teach us one. “

After that I felt reluctant to go out.

We could not leave the chateau until after the autopsy and because of the Comte’s position this aroused a good deal of attention. I was terribly afraid because I knew it had already been decided that he had murdered his wife.

I was greatly relieved to hear that I should not be expected to appear. I feared a probing into the reason why I had come to France and what would happen if Marguerite’s indiscretion had come to light?

How would Robert de Grasseville react? Would he want to marry her then? I sometimes felt it would have been better for her to make a complete confession to him but on the other hand I did not consider myself sufficiently worldly to know whether this would be wise.

The Comte returned in due course. The affair was over and the verdict was that the cause of death was the overdose of a sleeping draught which contained opium in excessive quantities. The Comtesse was discovered to have suffered from a disease of the lungs a disease from which it was recalled her mother had died. Doctors had visited her recently and had expressed their certainty that she was suffering from this disease in its early stages. If the Comtesse had known of this she would also have known that later she would have to endure great pain. The most likely verdict was that, knowing this, she had taken her own life by drinking a large quantity of a sleeping draught which she had been taking in small doses for some time, and which when taken thus could produce gentle sleep and be quite harmless.

The day he returned Nou-Nou paid one of her visits to my bedroom. She seemed to take a delight in my discomfiture.

“So,” she said, ‘you think this is the end of the matter, do you.

Mademoiselle? “

“The law is satisfied,” I said.

The law! Who is the law? Who has always been the law? He has . he and his kind. One law for the rich . one for the poor. That’s what the trouble’s about. He has his friends . all over the place. ” She stepped nearer to me.

“He came to me and he threatened me. He said:

“Stop your scandalous gossip, Nou-Nou. If you don’t you can get out.

And where would you go then, tell me that? Do you want to be sent away away from the rooms where she lived . away from her tomb where you can weep and revel in your mourning? ” Yes, that’s what he said. I said to him:

“You were there. You came into the room. You were with her. And then that woman came, didn’t she? Did she come to see if you’d done what you planned together? …”

“Stop it, Nou-Nou,” I said.

“You know I came because she said she wanted to see me. You yourself brought the message. She was already asleep when he left.”

“You saw him go, didn’t you? You came in … just as he was going. Oh, it’s a strange business, I’d say.”

“It’s not strange at all, Nou-Nou,” I said firmly.

“And you know it.”

She looked startled.

“What is it you’re so sure of?”

“I know this,” I replied.

“The verdict has been given. I believe it because it is the only possible one.”

She started to laugh wildly. I took her arm and shook it.

“Nou-Nou, go back to your room. Try to rest. Try to be calm. This is a terrible tragedy, but it is over and no good can come by dwelling on it.”

“It’s over for some,” she said mournfully.

“Life is over for some … for mignon ne and her old Nou-Nou. Others think it is just beginning for them perhaps.”

I shook my head angrily and she sat down suddenly and covered her face with her hands.

After a while she allowed me to take her back to her room.

It was I who found the stone with the paper attached to it. It was lying in the corridor outside my bedroom. I saw first that the window had been smashed and there on the floor was this object.

I picked it up. It was a heavy stone and stuck on it was the piece of paper. On this was written in uneven script: “Aristocrat. You murdered your wife but it is one law for the rich, one for the poor. Take heed.

Your time will come. “

I stood there for some horrified seconds with the paper in my hand.

Perhaps it was wrong of me but I always made quick decisions, though not always the right ones. I decided then that no one in the castle should see that paper.

I put the stone back on the floor and took the paper into my bedchamber. I spread it out and studied it. The writing was uneven but I had a notion that an attempt had been made to convey the impression of near-illiteracy. I felt the paper. It was strong stout stuff. Not the kind which poor people would use to write their letters on, even if they could write. It was of a shade of blue so pale as to be almost white.

There was a bureau in my bedroom and in this were sheets of notepaper headed with the address of the castle in elegant gold letters. The paper was of the same texture as the notepaper used in the castle. It could have been torn off from a piece of this.

There must be something significant in this. Could it be possible that someone in the castle was the Comte’s bitter enemy?

I thought, as I always did at times like this, of my mother. I could almost hear her saying to me: “Get out. There’s danger all around you.

You have already become embroiled in this household and it must stop without delay. Go back to’j England.

Take a post as companion . governess . or;| better still open a school. “

She is right, I thought, I am becoming too much affected by the Comte.

He has cast a spell on me in some way. I was trying not to believe that he had slipped the fatal dose into the Comtesse’s glass, but I could not with honesty say that I did not doubt him.

Margot was at the door.

“Another stone has been thrown through a window,” she announced.

“It’s just outside here.”

I rose and went to look at it.

Margot shrugged her shoulders.

“Stupid people. What do they think they are going to achieve by that?”

She was not deeply affected. This sort of thing was becoming a commonplace.

The Comte sent for Margot and me. He looked older, sterner than he had before his wife’s death.

“I want you to leave for Paris tomorrow,” he said.

“I think that would be best. I have had a note from the Grassevilles. They would like you to visit them but I think it better that you stay in my Paris residence. You are in mourning. The Grassevilles will visit you there.

You can shop for what you need. ” He turned to me suddenly.

“I rely on you to look after Marguerite.”

I wondered whether I should tell him of the note which had come through the window attached to the stone but I felt it would only add to his anxieties and I did not care to mention it before Margot. I hoped to see him alone before I left, but I realized that he was aware how closely we were watched. He would know too that it was being said he had escaped justice because he had friends in high places.

I went to my room to make my preparations. I took the piece of paper from the drawer and looked at it, wondering what I should do. I could not leave it and yet what if I took it with me and mislaid it? I made one of my sudden decisions. I tore it into scraps and taking it down to the hall where a fire was burning, I threw it in. I watched the flames curl about the blackened edges. It seemed to form itself into a malevolent face and I was immediately reminded

The Waiting City of that one I had seen outside the window on the night of the ball.

Leon! And the paper which might have come from the castle!

It was quite impossible. Leon would never be a traitor to the man who had done so much for him. I was so upset by recent events that my imagination was getting out or hand.

We left early soon after dawn.

The Comte came down to the courtyard to see us off. He held my hand firmly in his and said: “Take care of my daughter … and yourself.”

Then he added: “Be patient.”

I knew what he meant and that remark filled me with excitement, apprehension and foreboding.

Paris! What a city of enchantment. If I could have been there in other circumstances, how I should have loved it. My mother and I used to talk of the various places in the world we should like to visit and high on our list had been Paris.

It was a queen of cities, full of beauty and ugliness, living side by side. When I studied the maps I thought that the island in the Seine on which the city stood was like a cradle in shape and when I pointed this out to Margot she was only mildly interested.

“A cradle,” I said.

“It’s significant. In this cradle beauty was reared. Francois Premier with his love of fine buildings, with his devotion to literature, music and artists laid the foundations of the most intellectual court of Europe.”

Trust you to make it sound like a history lesson t’ retorted Margot.

“Well now, revolution is being reared in your cradle.”

I was startled. It was unlike her to talk seriously.

“Those stones which were thrown at the chateau,” she went on, “I keep thinking of them. Ten years ago they wouldn’t have dared … and now we dare do nothing about it. Change is coming, Minelle. You can feel it all around you.”

I could feel it. In those streets where the crowds jostled,

where the vendors shouted their wares1 had the feeling of | a waiting city.

The Comte’s residence was in the Faubourg Saint-HonorS among those of other members of the nobility. They stood, these houses, where they had for two to three hundred years, aloof and elegant. Not far away, I was to discover, was that labyrinth of little streets into which one dared not venture | unless accompanied by several strong men-evil-smelling, i narrow, cobbled, where lurked those who regarded any stranger as a victim. | We went into them on one occasion accompanied by Bessell | and another manservant. Margot had insisted. There was the S street of the women who sat at the doors, their faces ludicrously painted, their low-cut dresses deliberately revealing. | I remembered the names of the streets. Rue aux Feves, Rue de j la Jouverie, Rue de la Colandre, Rue. des Marmousets. They were the streets of the women and the dyers and outside many ;

of the houses stood great tubs in which the dyes were mixed;

red, blue and green dye flowed down the gutters like miniature rivers.

My room in the Comte’s hotel was even more elegant than that which I had occupied in the chateau. It overlooked beautiful gardens which were tended by a host of gardeners. There were greenhouses in which exotic blooms flourished and these were used to decorate the rooms.