Had he thought of this? I was sure he had. He had thought I was going to marry Bertrand and had no doubt considered that it would be rather amusing for me to bear a child to whom Bertrand could give his name.
There was, however, to be no marriage. I had not heard from Bertrand and I felt that I never would. I did not want to really.
But now . what was I going to do? I, an unmarried woman, was to bear a child.
I was amazed that I could work, but I did. I could throw myself wholeheartedly into work and forget everything while I was thus engaged. There was nothing for me but that young face which I had to produce for immortality. A hundred years from this moment people would look at my miniature of Francoise and know how she had looked at this time.
My work soothed me; in a way it revitalized me; it took strain from my mind; it gave me blessed forgetfulness of a future which must be fraught with difficulties.
But as soon as I had ceased to work the clouds settled round me.
Perhaps I had made a mistake. In my heart I knew it was no mistake.
Something had warned me when I had seen him in the carriage with Marie-Claude that I had not seen the last of him.
I spent a lot of time in my room. Soon I should have to pass on to the house of Monsieur Villefranche. After that I would go home. I tried to imagine myself telling my father and Clare.
How could I do that? Well-brought-up young ladies did not suddenly announce that they were about to give birth to a bastard.
I heard myself telling my father: “I was abducted, forced to submit to the wicked Baron. This is the result.”
It sounded feeble. Why had I said nothing about it until now? The inference would be that I had willingly dallied with the Baron knowing full well that he was betrothed to the Princesse.
“I hate him! I hate him!” I said aloud and then laughed at myself.
What was the use of reviling him now?
But what was I going to do?
Here I was on the brink of a great career and this had happened to me.
If it hadn’t I could have forgotten in time. Perhaps I could have settled down to a normal life with someone else, although at the moment I felt that to be impossible. He had damaged me mentally as well as physically, I had heard this could happen. He had made me shrink from men because if ever one approached me I should see his face leering at me, looking like the demon-gargoyle of Notre Dame.
As I considered the implications of what had happened to me I began to get frightened. I had time to ponder, it was true. Moreover, i had another portrait to do before I returned to England so had not to go immediately. I kept wondering how I could tell my father. He would be kindly and understanding, I knew; but he would be very shocked and I did not see how I could stay at Collison House with all the village knowing about my child.
I walked a great deal during those days. I had plenty of time to myself, and if I worked all morning I did not take up my brush during the rest of the day. In the early afternoon I need relaxation and I never felt the light was good enough after four o’clock.
I had lost my eager interest in the city. I would walk without even seeing the objects of beauty and antiquity. I was confronted all the time by my own seemingly insoluble problem.
One afternoon I sat down outside the Cafe Anglais where little tables had been set up under pink and white sunshades. It was getting a little chilly now, for we were well into September and there was a touch of autumn in the air. I wondered vaguely how much longer one would be able to sit in the streets and watch the people pass by as one drank a cup of coffee.
I was sitting there, deep in thought, when a voice called out: “Why, hello. It’s you again.” It was Nicole St. Giles.
“May I sit with you?” she went on.
“I’d like a cup of coffee.” She called to the garçon to bring it to her; then she turned to me.
“You look worried. Isn’t the picture going well?”
“Yes, the picture is going very well.”
“How fortunate you are to be so gifted! I suppose you feel that having this gift… well, it’s a compensation for so many things, isn’t it… almost everything?”
She was looking at me steadily and after a slight pause she said: “Do tell me what’s wrong. I’d like to help if I can.”
Perhaps it was the kindliness in her face. Perhaps it was the gentleness in her voice as she took my hand and pressed it. It might have been because I was so desperate. In any case, I clutched her hand and said: “I am going to have a child.”
She looked at me intently and said: “We can’t talk here very well.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know why I told you.”
Her coffee had come and she stirred it absentmindedly.
“You told me because you had to tell someone,” she said.
“I’m so glad I came along then. Come to my house. There we can talk in comfort.
Don’t worry. I am sure I can be of help. It’s not such an unusual state of affairs you know. It has happened before . many times.
The thing is to keep a cool head. “
Strangely enough I felt tremendously relieved, and when she had finished her coffee and the bill was paid she hired a cab and we sped away together.
The cab pulled up in one of the streets leading from the Boulevard St. Michel. We were before a white house of some four stories.
“Here we are,” said Nicole, and led the way up three steps to a door guarded by lions. She opened the door and we were in a hall of quite large proportions with a moulded ceiling which was decidedly elegant.
A door opened and a man whom my knowledge of the city immediately told me was a concierge appeared.
He said good day to Madame St. Giles and eyed me curiously while we passed into a room with long windows looking out on a patio in which grew potted plants.
There was a grand piano in one corner, several settees, comfortable-looking chairs, and one or two tables; an ormolu clock chimed four on the mantelpiece over the fireplace and on either side of it were figurines, flimsy draperies covering their anatomy in those sections which it would have been considered, in polite society, immodest to reveal.
She certainly had a comfortable-even luxurious home.
“Do sit down,” she said, ‘and tell me. “
I told her frankly what had happened. She nodded as I went along, and what was so comforting, did not question anything but believed all I said. Of course, she knew the Baron as well as anyone could.
She said at length: “It’s not an easy situation, but you can manage.”
“Manage!” I cried.
“I don’t know what to do. I could go home, I suppose. Can you imagine what it would be like in a small confined English village.”
“Very much what it would be like in a small confined French one,” she said.
“But of’ course you won’t go back there.”
“How how … where …”
She looked at me and smiled. I had always thought she had a sweet smile.
“Will you let me help … advise?”
“I am in such a state of anxiety that I would welcome any help and advice.”
“Don’t panic,” she said.
“Remember it is not an unusual situation.”
“You mean … rape … and such consequences.”
“I really meant respectable young women finding themselves pregnant.
You are fortunate. You have your work. That must be a great solace.
Moreover, it is a means of livelihood . quite a good livelihood I imagine. “
“It is becoming so.”
“And it will go on getting better and better. You are on the road to fame and fortune. This … matter … must not interfere with that.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I do. Because you are going to let me help.”
“I have no idea what I… or anyone … can do. Here I am a stranger in this city. I shall work while I can. Then I suppose I must go home.