The Devil on Horseback (12 page)

I felt then that a mystery was being created about us and I supposed that was inevitable. I was growing increasingly aware of the curious looks.

I did not mention that afternoon’s incident to Margot. I thought it better for her not to know. I remembered how hurriedly her father had left England on the night of the soiree. Since then I had learned something about that cause celebre, Queen Marie Antoinette’s necklace, that fabulous piece of jewellery made up of the finest diamonds in the world. I knew that Cardinal de Rohan, who had been duped into thinking that if he helped Marie Antoinette to procure the necklace she would become his mistress, had been arrested and then acquitted and that his acquittal was an implication that the Queen was guilty.

I had heard the Queen discussed slightingly everywhere in France. She was contemptuously called the Austrian Woman, and the country’s troubles were blamed on hen I did not need to be told that the affair of the necklace had not added one jot to the peace of the country. In fact it was almost like a match to dry wood.

It was a strange life. Tensions in the streets as I had seen when the carriage had rumbled past, and Margot and I living our strange shut-away lives during these months while we awaited the birth of her child.

Once when we were sitting in the garden she said: “Sometimes, Minelle, I can’t think beyond this place … and the baby’s coming. After that we are going to my home. It will either be to the country chateau or the hotel in Paris. I shall be light and willowy again. The baby will be gone. It will be as though this never happened.”

It can never be like that,” I said.

“We shall always re81

member. Particularly you. “

“I shall see my baby sometimes, Minelle. We must visit bin … you and

I.

”

“It will be forbidden, I am sure.”

Oh, it will be forbidden. My father said, “When the chil< is born, it will be given into the care of some good people I shall arrange that and you will never see it again. You wil have to forget this ever happened. Never speak of it, but a the same time regard it as a lesson. Never let this happci again.”

He has gone to a great deal of trouble to help you. “

“Not to save me but to save my name from dishonour. I makes me laugh sometimes. I am not the only member o:

the family to have a bastard child. One does not have to loo! very far for others. “

“You must be sensible, Margot. What your father plans i without doubt best for you.”

“And never see my child again!”

“You should have thought of that before …”

“What do you know of these matters? Do you think that when you are in love, when someone has his arms about you you think about a nonexistent child!”

“I should have thought the possibility of that nonexist en child’s actually existing might have occurred to you.”

“Wait, Minelle, wait until you are in love.”

I made an impatient movement and she laughed. Thei she moved awkwardly in her chair and went on: “It’s peaceful here. Do you find it so? It will be different at the eh&teai and in Paris. My father has the most luxurious residences They contain many treasures; but being here with you realize they lack the best thing of all. Peace.”

“Peace of mind,” I agreed.

“It is what wise people al way wish for.

Tell me about your life in your father’s mansions, “I have rarely been in Paris. When they went there I wa often left in the country and spent most of my life then The chateau was built ip the thirteenth century. The grea tower the keep is what you see first. In the old days ther used to be a ” Watch” in the tower which meant that there wa always a man there and it was his duty to give wa mini when an enemy approached. Even now we have a man ther and he gives a warning when guests are arriving by ringin;

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a bell. It is one of the musicians and to pass the time he sings and composes songs. At night he descends and often sings for us those chansons de guettes, which you will know, of course, are watchman’s songs. It’s an old custom and my father clings to old customs as much as possible. I sometimes think he was born too late. He hates this new attitude of the people which we are beginning to see springing up everywhere. He says the serfs are becoming insolent to their masters.

”

I was silent thinking of the recent incident in the town.

Quite a number of castles are of a much later date than ours,” went on Margot.

“Francois Premier built the chateaux of the Loire a good two hundred years after ours was set up. Of course ours has been restored and added to. There is the great staircase which is as old as any part of the building. This leads up to the part of the castle which we occupy. Right at the top of the staircase is a platform. Years ago the lords of the castle used to administer justice from the platform. My father still uses it, and if there is a dispute among any of the people on the estate they are summoned to the platform and my father passes judgement. It is exactly as it used to be done. At the foot of the staircase is a great courtyard and it is there they used to joust and tilt. Now we hold plays there in the summer and if there is a festival or something of that nature it takes place there. Oh, talking of it brings it all back so clearly and, Minelle, I’m frightened. I’m frightened of what is going to happen when we leave here.”

“We’ll face it when it comes,” I said.

“Tell me about the people who live in the castle.”

“My parents you know. Poor Maman is very often ill or pretends to be.

My father hates illness. He doesn’t believe in it. He thinks it’s something people fancy. Poor Maman is very unhappy. It is something to do with having me instead of a boy and then not being able to have any more. “

“It must have been a disappointment to a man like the Comte not to have a son.”

“Isn’t it maddening, Minelle, the way they want boys … always boys. In our country a girl cannot come to the throne. You in England don’t go as far as that.”

No, as I have always taught you, two of the greatest periods of English history were when queens were on the throne.

Elizabeth and Anne. “

“Yes, it’s one of the few things I remember from your history lessons.

You always looked so fierce when you said that. Waving the flag for our sex. “

“Of course both of them were blessed with clever ministers.”

“Well, do you want to give a history lesson or hear about my family?”

I shall be interested to hear about your family. ” :

“I have told you about my father and mother and you know how ill-assorted they are. It was an arranged marriage when my mother was sixteen and my father seventeen. They saw | very little of each other before the wedding. That’s how | things are arranged in families like ours, and it was considered a most suitable match. Of course it was as unsuitable | as it possibly could be. Poor Maman! She is the one I am| sorry for. My father would naturally find consolation else-” J where. ” , ” And that is what he did? “

“Naturally. He had had his adventures before marriage. I;

wonder why he can be so shocked over me. Not that he really was. As I said, it wasn’t what I had done but that I i had been found out. It’s all right for serving girls and members of the lower classes generally to have a bastard,;

or two (in fact it is often their duty if the lord of the castle takes a fancy to them) but not, oh certainly not, for the daughter of the great family. So you see there is one law for the rich and one for the poor and this time it works against us. “

“Be serious, Margot. I want to learn something about the;

people at the castle before I go there. ” ” Very well. I’m leading up to that. I was going to tell you, about Etienne-the crop of my father’s earliest wild oat;

Etienne lives at the chateau. He is my father’s son. “

“I thought you said there was no son.”

“Minelle, you are being obtuse. He is my father’s illegitimat son. Papa was only sixteen when Etienne was born.

How hej can dare Sit in judgement on me I don’t know. Not only is!

there one law for the rich and one for the poor, but one for men and one for women. I was born a year after my parent’ff marriage. My mother suffered terribly and nearly died. However, both she and I managed to survive the ordeal of my getting born but the result was that to have another child would endanger her life. So there was my father-who had had everything he wanted in life up to that time-at the age of eighteen, head of a noble house, faced with the fact that he would never have a son. And of course what every man wants especially one who has a great name to preserve -is a son, and not only one, for he must be doubly sure. “

That must have been a great blow. “

“It was not as though he loved my mother. I always thought that if she had stood up to him a little he might have thought more of her. She never did, though. She always avoided him and they saw very little of each other. She spends most of her time in her rooms waited on by NouNou, her old nurse, who defends her like a dragon breathing fire, and even daring to stand up to Papa. But I must tell you about Etienne.”

Yes, do tell me about Etienne. “

Naturally I wasn’t there at the time but I have heard servants talk.

It was considered amusing that my father should have shown his virility at such an early age. Etienne came into the world to a flourish of trumpets metaphorically speaking-and has had a very high opinion of himself ever since. He is cast in the same mould as my father-which is not surprising since he is his son. Well, when it was known that my father could have no more children and the hopes of a legitimate son were no more, my father brought Etienne to the chateau and he was treated like a legitimate son. He has been educated as such and is often with my father. Everyone knows that he is a bastard and that infuriates him, but he hopes to inherit the estates if not the title. He can be very moody and has outbursts of temper which terrify people. If my mother died and my father married again I don’t know what Etienne would do. “

I can see how unfair he would consider that. “

“Poor Etienne! He is my father all over again … but not quite. You know how it is with people who are not quite what they wish to be. Etienne flaunts his nobility, if you know what I mean. I have seen him whip a young boy who called him the Bastard. But he is very attractive. The girls in the servants’ quarters will verify that. Etienne is a Count in a ways except that his mother was not married to his fath< and he is so determined that no one shall remember that that he can’t forget it himself. Oh and then … Leon.”

“Another man?”

“Leon’s case is very different. Leon has no need to whip sma boys. He is no bastard. He was born in holy wedlock. H parents were peasants and it would be no use his trying t pretend otherwise, even if he wanted to, for everyone know it. Leon, though, has received the same education as Etienn and no one would guess he was the son of peasants if the did not know it. Leon therefore has an air of nobility whic sits easily on him and he would laugh if anyone called nil Peasant. To see Leon in his fine velvet jacket and buck ski breeches you would say he was an aristocrat. Which prove;

of course, that where a man is brought up can have fa more effect on him than who his parents were. “

I have always been inclined to believe that. But tell m more of Leon.

Why is he at the chateauT “It is rather a romantic story. He came to the chateau whe:

he was six. I was too young to remember. Actually it wa soon after I was born and my father had just realized that m mother could have no more children. He was very angry . bitter against a fate which had married him to a woman will had become barren after the birth of her first child . daughter . and then had had the temerity to go on living “Margot!”

“Dear Minelle, are we speaking the truth or not? If m mother had died when I was born my father would have married again after a suitable interval and I might have had numerous half-sisters and what is all-important, brothers Then my little peccadillo might not have been so important But Maman went on living … most inconsiderate of the . and Papa was a prisoner of a kind … caught by a crue fate, trapped, married to a woman who could be of no use ti him.”

This is no way to talk of your parents. “

“Very well. I will tell you they are devoted to each othel He never leaves her side. All his thoughts are for her. I that what you want?”

“Don’t be silly, Margot. Naturally I want the truth, bu tempered with respect.”

“How amusing you are I It is not a matter of respect but to tell you how things stand. That’s what you asked for, did you not? Do you want to hear or don’t you?”

“I want to know as much as possible about the chateau before I go there.”

“Then don’t expect to hear fairy tales. My father is no charming prince, I do assure you. When he knew that he was saddled with a barren wife he was so angry that he took his horse and rode it till it dropped with exhaustion. Riding madly like that seemed to be the way he gave an outlet to his fury. The household was glad to get him out of the way for woe betide any of them who angered him. The people used to call him the Devil on Horseback and when they saw him kept out of the way.”

I was startled because that was the name I had given him when I had first seen him. It fitted him absolutely.

“Sometimes,” went on Margot, “Papa travelled in his cabriolet which he drove himself using the most spirited horses in his stables. This was more dangerous than when he rode his horse, and one day he was riding in this wild and reckless fashion through the village of Lapine, which was about ten kilos from the chateau, when he ran over a child and killed it.”

“How dreadful!”

“I think he was sorry.”

“I should hope he was.”

It brought him to his senses, I think. But let me tell you about Leon. He is the twin brother of the boy who was killed. The mother was nearly demented. She so far forgot what she owed her overlord that she came to the castle and tried to stab him. He overpowered her easily.