However, I had little time to think of my appearance. Everyone was admiring the miniature and calling attention to its excellence as they discovered something fresh which appealed to them.
The Baron took my hand and led me up to a dais. We mounted the few steps and I stood there with him on one side of me, my father on the other.
He then explained briefly my father’s affliction and the fact that I had painted the miniature. They seemed to have no doubt that I was a great artist. There I was . so young and talented. He was certain that before the end of my life I was going to be the greatest Collison of them all.
People came up to congratulate me. I had to promise on the spot that as soon as I was free I would go to the house of Madame Dupont to paint her two daughters. It was a definite commission. A Monsieur Villefranche made me promise to come and paint his wife.
It was triumph such as my father and I had never dreamed of.
The Baron was smiling with a faintly proprietorial air. He was obviously delighted with the reaction of his guests.
When the musicians began to play a waltz he seized me and swept me off my feet “Do you dance as well as you paint, Mademoiselle Collison?” he asked.
He was smiling. Here was a new aspect of him. He was really quite pleased by my success. I had not thought him capable of feeling pleasure for other people, but I supposed that as a lover of art he was so delighted with the miniature and there was also a good deal of gratification because he had been aware of the deception from the beginning.
I tried to keep up with him but his dancing was a trifle erratic. He had a trick of lifting me off my feet so that I felt as though I were flying through the air.
“A successful evening, eh?” he said.
“The start of a great career. My blessings on you.”
“I have to thank you,” I said.
“We are friends at last. Is that not charming?”
I said it was.
The dance came to an end. He released me and a short time after I saw him dancing with Nicole.
Many people sought my company that night. It was my time of triumph, and I was young and inexperienced enough to enjoy every moment of it.
For me it was over all too soon.
The following day could not be anything else but an anticlimax. My father and I were to leave Centeville on the day after. My father would go home. The Baron had insisted that one of his men should accompany him. I was to be taken to the home of the Princesse where I should begin on my miniature. After that I could decide when I wished to execute the several commissions which had been offered to me, and I could plan my life from there.
I spent the morning packing and then took a walk round the grounds. I was joined by Bertrand who said that the Baron was out riding with Nicole and he thought he would be away until evening. On his return he wished to have an interview with Bertrand.
“It is coming now,” he said.
“I am to be given my orders. I think he probably waited until the miniature was completed before giving them to me.”
“Perhaps he merely wants to say goodbye. You will be leaving soon, won’t you?”
“I plan to travel to Paris with you and your father.”
“That will be very pleasant for us.”
“I understand someone will be accompanying your father to England.”
“That is that I have been told.”
“Then you will have nothing to worry about. How do you feel about going to the Princesse?”
“Do you mean, do I feel nervous? The answer is no… not after what happened. The Baron has really done a great deal for me.”
Bertrand nodded.
“We will meet when you are in Paris.”
“That will be very nice.”
“You didn’t think I would let you slip away, did you?” He looked at me earnestly.
“Kate, when you have finished this commission you must come and stay with my mother. She wants to meet you.”
“I should like that very much. I’ll look forward to it.”
“Kate …” He hesitated.
“Yes?”
“There is something I have to say to you.”
“Well, I’m listening.”
“I… er …” He paused.
“I think I hear sounds of arrival. It may be Rollo is coming back already. He’ll probably be wanting to see me.
He must have changed his plans . I wonder what my orders will be.
Perhaps we can talk it over later. “
“All right then … later.”
“Au revoir, Kate.”
He was smiling at me in a rather bemused way. I guessed what he had intended asking me. It must surely be that he wanted to marry me. I felt a certain pleasure at the prospect. I was not really sure. I had been living in circumstances alien to everything I had known before.
It was understandable that I should be affected by them and to such an extent as not to be able to make a sound judgement, I had known Bertrand such a short time, yet I should feel desolate if I
should have to say goodbye to him and never see him again. And yet. I was so uncertain. I was rather glad that the Baron had decided to return early and so had put off the moment of decision even for a little while.
It must have been an hour later when Bertrand came to my room. He seemed like a different man from the one I had known. His face was blotched and his eyes slightly bloodshot. His mouth twitched with uncontrollable rage.
“Bertrand,” I cried.
“What on earth has happened?”
He stepped into the room and shut the door.
“I am leaving the castle at once.”
When? Why? “
“Now. Immediately. I just came to tell you. I will not stay here a minute longer than I need.”
“You have quarrelled with the Baron?”
“Quarrelled?” he cried.
“I will never speak to him again. He’s a devil… He’s worse than I believed him to be… and God knows that was bad enough. He’s a demon. I hate him. And he hates me too. Can you guess what he wants me to do?”
“No!” I cried, bewildered.
He spat out: “Marry! Marry Nicole.”
“What?”
“He wants her settled comfortably … and he has ordered me to make an honest woman other.”
“No!”
“But yes. That is what he has just told me.”
“How could he suggest such a thing!”
“He just did.”
“And Nicole?”
“I doubt she knows anything about the transaction. That’s how it is with him. He makes the laws and other people carry them out.”
“But how could he suggest such a thing. What did he say?”
“He said that now he was marrying he wanted to find a husband for Nicole and he thought that I would fit the book very well. He would make her an allowance and one for me and I should be considerably richer than I am now. I just let him run on and then I shouted at him.
I told him I would never marry his castoff mistress. “
“He must accept that.”
“He didn’t. He said I was a young fool. I was turning down a good offer. He wanted me to marry Nicole and that was the best reason in the world for my doing so. He was going to put all sorts of opportunities in my way. He would be my generous patron … I kept shouting at him that I would not marry a mistress he no longer wanted.
I said I had my own plans for marriage. “
“You … said that?”