The Emperor (16 page)

‘
Le nez carrè,'
Héloïse whispered.

‘
Madame?' said Marie anxiously. Héloïse stopped and
put down the hag which she had been taking a turn in carry
ing, but she seemed to do these things involuntarily. Her
face was as white as paper, and her wide eyes were fixed on
the riders who came cantering down on them, evidently
expecting them to move out of the way. Then the bay horse was reined in so suddenly that he was forced onto his hocks in a half rear, and shook his head angrily and snorted as the
chestnut almost ran into him. There was a moment of
equine confusion, and then stillness. The rider on the bay horse took off his hat with a sleepwalker's movement, his
face below the ruffled fox-dark hair as white as that of
Héloïse.

‘Is it you?' he said. 'Is it really you?'

‘Yes, James. I have come home.’

He stared a moment longer, and then flung himself from
the saddle, and ran to her, pulling the unwilling Nez Carré
behind him, and she was enfolded in his arms, her small,
thin body – oh so thin! – pressed against him. He cradled
her against his chest and rested his cheek on her head, and
closed his eyes, feeling tears of weak relief rising behind his
closed lids.

‘Oh my darling, my darling.’

Nez Carré pricked his ears and knuckered softly, and
poked his long nose over James's shoulder to see what was
happening. The tip of Héloïse's ear, pink in a black forest
of hair, was the only part of her that was visible, and
he nibbled it experimentally. Durban jumped down and
took the reins from James, and looked on with a troubled frown.

At last Héloïse was released just sufficiently to look up at
James. Her face was luminous with joy. She reached up and
touched his cheek, and he caught her hand and put it to his lips, and then turned it over and kissed the palm. He had remembered it as it had been, a lady's hand; but he loved it now, bone-thin, calloused and work-stained, even more.

‘Where have you been?' he managed to say. 'You are so thin and pale - oh, Héloïse, I thought I would never see you again! Why did you run away? Oh, my darling -'

‘James, James,' she said exultantly. 'Oh, I can't believe I am here again, that it is really you! I have thought of you so
often. When things were hard - ah, but there is no need to
talk of that now. It is all over. I have come home, and now
nothing can ever take me away again! Vendenoir is dead!
He can never come between us again, and there is no-one else, nothing else -’

She stopped short as the joy in James's eyes was replaced
by one of dawning horror, and the blood drained from her
face in fear. 'James, what is it?’

His lips moved, but no sound passed them. He touched
her face and hair distractedly, and then closed his eyes, and
turned his face away in pain and helplessness.

‘James, what is wrong?' she asked again. For answer he folded her again in his arms, pressed her so closely to him
that she could hardly breathe, and then put her from him.
His arms dropped to his sides in a gesture of finality.

‘I'm married.’

She stared at him, unable to understand the words, her frightened brain pushing them away. His voice rose. 'Don't
you hear me? I am a married man. I have a wife.' He made a
violent gesture back along the path which made both horses
jerk back their heads. 'Back there in Morland Place there isa Mrs James Morland, my lawful wedded wife.’

Héloïse stared at him. 'It can't be true. It can't be.'

‘
It's true all right. God, God, the irony of it!' He
clenched his fists and turned his face upwards to the grey
sky. 'All my life! Oh God, what have I done?' He looked
down at her, small and thin as a child, staring at him with
those great, dark, sad-monkey eyes, and loved her so consumingly he thought he might just be used up there and then, burn to ash and be blown away on the wind. His brief anger of frustration passed, and left him with a hopeless
sadness that was harder to bear, and harder for her to
witness. 'My Héloïse, my Marmoset! Oh, why did you go
away? That was cruel! I would never have tried to force you to do what was wrong. I could have helped you. You should not have suffered like this. Your poor hands! I would have kept you safe, and cared for you, and then, when he - when you were free -'

‘I never thought,' she said in a voice so small he could
hardly hear it, 'that you would marry anyone else. How
foolish of me. I am so sorry, James. I - I wish you well.' She began to turn away, and he caught her wrist in panic.

‘Where are you going?'

‘Away. I must go away,' she said.

‘
No!' he shouted. She did not flinch, but looked up at
him with an expression that tore him to pieces.

‘There is no place for me here. You are married to someone else -'

‘
I don't love her. I love you! You are my only love, you
are my soul! Héloïse, you
must not
go away, please,
please!’

She said nothing, but there was no slackening of resist
ance, and after a moment he loosened his fingers deliberately and let her go. When he spoke again, it was quietly,
with a control that evidently cost him dearly.

‘Please, Héloïse, don't go away. I cannot bear it again. I must know where you are, that you are all right, I must see you sometimes. Come with me to the house. I swear to you
that nothing will be said or done to offend you. My wife -'
he saw her move her head in pain at the words - 'my wife
shall know nothing of our history. There will be no impro
priety.'

‘
By what right can I come with you?' she said in a low
voice.

‘
Morland Place is your home,' he said desperately. 'You
have no other. My mother is your aunt. You cannot disap
point Mama. Think how she would grieve if you went away
again without seeing her. Please, Marmoset, come home.
We will find some way to arrange things. Everything will be
all right, I swear it, if only you don't go away again.’

She gave a little trembling sigh, and the resistance went
out of her. She nodded, and his relief was visible. He
reached out for her hand, to lead her, but she drew it back with a grave look, and an expression of bitterness crossed
his face.

‘
Ah, yes, I understand,' he said. 'You refuse to touch me,
now that I am a married man.'

‘
What else can I do?' she said. The dream was ended.
She felt then that she had lived just five minutes too long.

 
Jemima received Héloïse into her arms like a mother, kissed
and hugged her, rejoiced that she was home, lamented over
the evidence in her appearance of the hardship she had
undergone, and only then became suddenly aware of the full
implications of the situation.. Her reactions were repeated
over and over again as each member of the household,
family and servants alike, first delighted in her presence,
then recollected Mrs James, and finally determined that
nothing in their behaviour would lead to her being forced to
go away again.

Héloïse felt as though she were in a dream: everything
seemed remote to her, seen and heard through a veil,
slightly distorted. Morland Place was so familiar, but now
suddenly was not home; James was not James; and here was
a stranger, a tall, fair, composed, cool, very English young
woman, who was James's wife. And how could that be?
How could something so intimately a part of James, her
James, be unknown to her? She tried to make sense of it,
and shook her head like a dog shaking water from its ears.
The anomaly was too great for her, weary as she was. She
took the profferred hand dazedly, and spoke a few dis
jointed words.

Mary Ann received the introduction calmly. She saw a
very small, very dark Frenchwoman, who was obviously
suffering from the effects of a long journey; and, by the state
of her clothes and skin and hair, and by the smell of her,
from a longer exposure to poverty and want. The white,
pinched face was gaunt and looked older than its years, but
Mary Ann allowed that food and rest might improve her
appearance, though she would never be better than plain,
with that long nose and wide mouth.

Héloïse was introduced to her as the Lady Henrietta
Louisa Stuart, Countess of Strathord, a distant cousin who
had escaped the Revolution, and lost her father to the
guillotine, and had now come, homeless and destitute, to
Morland Place for refuge. The explanation was perfectly
comprehensible and aroused her sympathies, but troubled
her in no other way. If she noticed any tension in the air, it
was only what was consistent with the excitement of the
unexpected event.

When the first flurry of arrival was over, Jemima thought
it prudent to remove Héloïse from the scene, and took her
upstairs to her own bed chamber, the red room, giving orders for hot water and food to be sent; and there she
undressed Héloïse like a child, and bathed her, and dressed
her in one of her own bedgowns, and put her into her own
bed. The food arrived, hot soup and bread and meat, and
Jemima fed her tenderly as though she were an invalid, and
insisted that she drank two glasses of claret, and then bid her
lie down and sleep.

‘
I know it's early, but you are very tired, more tired than
you know, perhaps,' she said. Héloïse looked up at her
gratefully.

‘Is not this your bed? Where will you sleep?'

‘
Over there,' Jemima said, indicating the small bed in the
corner, 'where Louisa slept, when she and Mary shared this
chamber. I shall be near if you wake in the night.’

Héloïse caught hold of her hand. 'Give me your blessing,
ma tante,'
she said.

‘
You used to call me your
nouvelle Maman,'
Jemima
said, smiling, and then was sorry when she saw the stricken
look in Héloïse's eyes.

‘
Oh, Maman, what shall I do? What will become of me?'
Héloïse whispered. Jemima lifted her hand to her lips and
kissed it.

‘
I don't know. Oh, child, I am so sorry things have
happened this way. I would give anything in the world to make it all right for you, and for James.' She sighed, and
then gave Héloïse back her hand, and smiled, and brushed
the hair from her forehead. 'Sleep now, and try not to
worry. Whatever happens, you aren't alone any more. We
are your family, and you belong to us, and we'll work things
out together, one way or another. But you must promise me
you won't run away again. You can't think how I haveworried about you.'

‘
I'm sorry, Maman. I promise.' Her eyes were beginning
to close, as her tired spirit longed for escape. 'Please — will
you see that Marie is taken care of?' she murmured.

‘Of course I will. Goodnight, my love. God bless you.’

*

There was so much to be learnt; so many things had
changed. Madame de Chelmsford, that sweet kind lady, was
dead; milord, who had been so devoted to her, had married
again, and his new wife, who was younger than Héloïse, was
already pregnant. There were more babies: Mary's Hippo
lyta had been expected when Héloïse had run away, but
now Lucy was a mother too, hard though it was to imagine.
Horatio and his wife Lady Barbara had two, Marcus and the
new baby Barbarina, born in September; and James had a
daughter.

That was hard to bear, harder still the pride in his voice
when he spoke of her. So many new young lives to come between her and the world she had quitted, and hoped so
hard to rejoin! Sometimes she felt like the hundred-year
sleeper; at others as though she need only blink to restore
things to the way they had been two and a half years ago.

She spent the first days in a kind of convalescence,
sleeping long, doing little; eating a variety of delicate and
nourishing dishes prepared with loving skill by Monsieur
Barnard, who had clung to her hand weeping with joy when she went to the kitchen to be welcomed back; taking a little
light exercise in the gardens, and resting long hours on the
sofa, while various members of the family talked to her,
asking questions and relating the news.