The Devil on Horseback (36 page)

It was mid-morning. The sun was beginning to climb. In a few hours it would be very hot.

As I walked into the town several people called a greeting. One woman seated on a basket asked how the little one was. I told her that Chariot was very well indeed.

“Poor mite! To be left like that. I would wring the neck of a mother.

Mademoiselle, who left a little one. Yes, I would, as easily as Monsieur Berray wrings the necks of his chickens. “

“No one could be better cared for than young Chariot is now, Madame.”

“I know it well. And young Madame … she is born to be a mother.

She has become one quickly, eh? Married but a few weeks . “

Clinging to her basket she tottered perilously, almost overcome by her own humour.

“Madame has a great fondness for babies,” I said.

God bless her. “

I passed on. There was scarcely anyone who did not ask after the baby.

I was some time choosing the ribbons, and when I had done so I decided to have a cup of coffee and one of the delectable little cream cakes before I began to walk back.

I sat at a table under the blue umbrella and the coffee was brought to me by Madame Durand, who chatted a while about the baby who had had the good fortune to be left at the gates of the chateau.

When she had left me I sat brooding on what Yvette had told me and asking myself why she had conceived such a passionate hatred of the Comte. Nou-Nou had felt the same towards him. It could only be because of his treatment of Ursule as they both had such affection for her.

There was much I did not know of her. I had fancied her to be a peevish hypochondriac but it was not now easy to reconcile that assessment of her character with that of a woman who bad-inspired such devotion. With Nou-Nou who had lost her own child, it was understandable. Yvette was a different case. Yvette was a woman of good sense and independent spirit and since she had formed a great friendship with her employer’s daughter it must mean that there was something unusual about that daughter.

Always when I thought of the Comte and his affairs I was sooner or later in complete bewilderment.

As I sat there shielded from the sunshine by the blue umbrella, sipping my coffee and savouring my gateau, I had the strange feeling that I was being watched.

It was all the more extraordinary that I should feel this on a bright, sunny morning in the heart of the town. Turning as unobtrusively as I could, I noticed a man a few tables away from me. As I turned his head moved and he was staring straight ahead. I was sure he had been intent on me. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I had seen him before. It was when we were on our way from Paris to Grasseville. He had been at an inn in which we had stayed the night. It was something about the way his head was set on his shoulders which made him recognizable. His neck was slightly shorter than average, his shoulders faintly rounded. He wore a dark wig and one of the tall hats with a brim which hid part of his face-the type of hat which could be seen everywhere. His jacket and breeches were of the same nondescript brown as the hat. He looked, in fact, like many other people one saw in towns and villages and would never have attracted attention by his dress. It was merely the set of his head on his shoulders which made me recognize him.

I must be imagining his interest in me. Why should it be there? Unless he had heard, of course, that I came from the chateau and was the cousin of the new Madame who had recently adopted the baby found at the gates.

Yet for the moment that man had given me a twinge of uneasiness. Ever since that distressing event in the lane when I could so easily have lost my life, I had been on the alert.

I was still thinking about the man in the dark wig when I rose and walked away. It did seem odd that he had been at the inn where we bad stayed. But perhaps he lived here. I must make discreet enquiries about him.

I walked back to the ribbon shop having decided to buy some lace which I had seen there. I came out of the shop and walked past the patisserie. The man was no longer sitting at the table.

I left the town and began the short walk to the chateau. When I reached the incline I turned and looked back. The man was walking along in the direction I had come as though following me at a discreet distance.

I went to the chateau still thinking of him.

It was not difficult to lure Yvette to talk of Ursule. I found her sitting in the gardens, some sewing in her hands, and I went to join her.

“We should make the most of this,” she said.

“It won’t last long.”

“You mean this peace.”

She nodded.

“I wonder what’s happening in Paris. It must be very hot there. It’s strange how heat makes tempers rise. At night people will be out in the streets. They will be gathering at the Palais Royale. There’ll be speeches and oaths and threats.”

“The government may have a solution. I believe the Comte is attending meetings of the council there.”

Yvette shook her head.

“The hatred is too strong … tempered with envy. There is little that can be done now. If the mob were to rise I would not care to be a member of the aristocracy who fell into its hands.”

I shivered, thinking of him, arrogant, dignified, seeming omnipotent in his own castle. It would be different in the streets of Paris.

“It is the reckoning,” said Yvette.

“The Comte Fontaine Delibes has been a despotic ruler. His word was law. It is time he was overthrown.”

“Why did Ursule marry him?” I asked.

“Poor child, she had no choice.”

“I thought the Brousseaux doted on her.”

“So they did, but they wanted the best possible marriage for her.

There could not have been a grander . outside royalty. They wanted honours for her. Happiness, they thought, would follow. She would have a fine chateau as her home, a grand name, a husband who was well known for the part he played in both Paris and the country. That he was the devil incarnate did not seem of any importance. “

“Was he so bad?” I asked almost plaintively, wanting her to say something good of him.

“When they were married he was not very old … only a year or so older than she was … bui old in sin. A man like that is mature at fourteen. You may look disbelieving but I can assure you he had had his adventures even then. He was eighteen at the time of his marriage.

He already had an established mistress. You know her. “

“Gabrielle LeG rand yes.”

“And she had borne him a son. You know of this, how Etienne was brought to the chateau. Can you think of any thing more cruel than to bring a son by another woman to flaunt before your wife because she is unable to bear more children?”

“It is heartless, I agree.”

“Heartless indeed. He has no heart. He has never thought anything of greater importance than the gratification of his desires.”

“I should have thought with such parents, with NouNou and you, Ursule could have refused to marry him.”

“You know him.” She looked at me obliquely and I wondered what rumours she had heard about me and the Comte. Clearly she had heard something, for this was the reason behind her vehemence. She was warning me.

“There is about him a certain charm. It’s a sort of devilish allure.

It seems irresistible to quite a lot of women. To become involved with him is like stepping on to shifting sands. I believe they can be very beautiful, inviting you to walk on them and as soon as you take your first step you begin to sink, and unless you |; have the wit and power to withdraw quickly you are lost. “

“Do you really think anyone is entirely evil?”

“I think some people glory in the power they have over others. They see themselves towering above everyone else. Their needs, their desires are all-important. They must be satisfied no matter who suffers in the process of gratification.”

“He looked after you when you left,” I reminded her.

“He gave you a home and enabled you to have Jose and live in comfort.”

“I thought it was good of him at the time. Later ]. began to think he might have a motive.”

“What motive could he have had?”

“He might have wanted me out of the way.”

“Why?”

“He might have had plans for Ursule.”

“You can’t mean…”

“My dear Mademoiselle, I am surprised that a young woman of your apparent good sense should allow herself to be so deceived. But that has happened to others. My poor little Ursule! I remember well the night they sent for her. She went down to the salon and was presented to him. The marriage contracts were already drawn up. Oh, it was to be such a grand match! The Brousseau family is an ancient one, but it had lost some of its wealth through the centuries. His family had retained theirs. Thus the family were gaining a son-in-law of equal nobility and vastly greater wealth and importance. They needed money and there was a very good marriage settlement which far exceeded the dowry they had to provide for their daughter. It was a most advantageous marriage-smiled on by both sides.”

“And Ursule?”

“He charmed her … as he has many. She came to me afterwards … she always came to me. She would go to Nou-Nou as a child who has hurt itself and wants to be kissed and made better. To me she confided her real problems. She was bemused.

“Yvette,” she said, “I never saw anyone like him. Of course I haven’t. There isn’t anyone like him.”

She walked about in a sort of dream. She was so innocent. She knew nothing of the world. Life for her then was a romantic dream. “

“And when you saw him?”

“I did not know him then. I thought he had all the charm and grace which had attracted her. I was to learn later the sort of life he had led. We thought, both Nou-Nou and I, that he was almost worthy of her.

How quickly we were disillusioned. “

“How quickly?” I persisted.

They went to one of his country homes for the honeymoon. It was Villers Brabante, a beautiful house, small by chateau standards, but charmingly set in rural surroundings . quite peaceful . the ideal place for a honeymoon . providing of course that one has the ideal husband. He was far from that. “

“How did you know?”

“One only had to look at her. We … Nou-Nou and I … had gone on to Silvaine to be ready for them when they came back. It was the first time Nou-Nou had been parted from her. She was like a hen who has lost her chick. She was clucking all the time, getting distracted. She would sit up at the watch tower with the watchman looking out for their return. Then they came … and one took at her face and we knew. She was bewildered. Poor child, she had been taught nothing of life … particularly life lived with a man like that. She was bewildered and frightened. Frightened of him … frightened of everything. In two weeks she was quite changed.”

“He was young too,” I said in his defence.

“Young in years, old in experience. He must have found her very different from the loose women he had known. I think she was probably pregnant when they came back, for soon after it was obvious. That too was a great trial for her. She was terrified of having a child. We were closer than ever then. She turned to me.

“There are things I can’t talk of to Nou-Nou,” she used to say, and she told me how she had disappointed him, how she wanted to be alone, how marriage was so different from what she had thought it would be. We used to sit together during the waiting months and she told me something of what she called her ordeal. And now another awaited her: the birth of her child.

“There has to be a son, Yvette,” she said.

“If this child is a son I shall never go through it again. If it is a girl …” Then she shivered and clung to me trembling. I started to hate him then. “

“After all,” I said, ‘it is what one expects of marriage. Perhaps the trouble was that Ursule had not been prepared. “

“You find excuses for him. Poor Ursule! How ill she was before Marguerite’s birth. Nou-Nou was in terror that she would never come through. But we had the best doctors, the best midwife and at last the day came when the child was born. I shall never forget her face when she was told it was a girl. She was very, very ill and the doctors said that if she had another child she would run such risks that could well cost her her life.

“She must make no more attempts to have children,” said the doctors. You would have thought she was a Queen being crowned. Nou-Nou and I cried together in our relief. It was as though our darling was restored to us. “

“The Comte must have been a very disappointed man.”

“He was mad with rage. He used to go out riding or driving and they said he was like a madman. He was in a dilemma. They said he cursed the day he had married. He had an invalid wife … one daughter and no son. You must have heard that he killed a boy.”

“Yes. Leon’s twin brother.”

“It was nothing short of murder.”

“It was not done purposely. It was an accident. And he compensated the family. I have heard he was very good to them. We know what he did for Leon.”

“It cost him nothing. That is the sort of man he is … ruthless. Then he brought Etienne to the chateau … his bastard son … to show her that if she could not give him sons others could.

It was a cruel thing to do. “

“Was she hurt?”

“She said to me once: ” I don’t care, Yvette, as long as I do not have to submit. He may have twenty bastard sons here as long as I don’t have to try to give him a legal one. ” You see how ruthless he is. He cares so little for his wife’s feelings that he brings Etienne here.

Etienne’s hopes are raised; so are those of his mother. They are hoping that Etienne will be legitimized and made the Comte’s heir, but he keeps them on tenterhooks. It amuses him. “

“One can only feel sorry for everyone concerned,” I said. She looked at me sharply and shook her head as though in despair.

I went on: “At least Ursule had her daughter.”

“She never cared greatly for Marguerite. I think the child reminded her of her birth and all she had suffered.”

“It was not Marguerite’s fault,” I said sharply.

“I should have thought it would have been natural for a mother to care for her child.”

“Marguerite soon showed herself well able to look after herself.