“It is not for you.”
“Shame, Kate. His own father!”
“I heard you have a son of your own … a legitimate one.”
His face hardened.
“I have no son,” he said.
“The Princesse has a son, I was told.”
“She has.”
“Then …”
“You knew, Kate. You were with her. I believe she confided in you. She did not come to me a virgin.”
I looked at him steadily, mockingly. He was very serious now.
“The child was born too soon,” he said.
“I knew it was not mine. She admitted that she had had a lover. Armand L’Estrange. So I give my name to a bastard. What do you think of that? It makes you laugh, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, laughing.
“It makes me laugh.” Then I was sober suddenly.
“The poor little Princesse … I began.
“Oh, you are sorry for her, are you? That deceitful harlot.”
“I’d be sorry for anyone who had the ill fortune to marry you.”
“Well, you have the satisfaction of knowing that I have a share in that misfortune.”
“You are outraged, I am sure. Never mind. You have learned a valuable lesson. You can be deceived like anyone else. What is good for men is perhaps after all good for women. You should not feel so angry because you have been caught at your own game.”
“I had forgotten you are one of the advanced women, are you not? You are a woman and an artist. You stand side by side with men and compete with them.”
“I compete as an artist… if you call it competing. This is not a matter of sex.”
“I gave you your chance … remember that. Do you think you would have found it so easy if I had not?”
“No. But you claim to be a lover of art. You recognized my talent and for that reason only you pointed it out to others.”
“I was interested m_you.”
“As an artist.”
“And as a woman. I think I proved that.”
“Oh, I thought that was a matter of sordid revenge.”
“It is always a good rule to combine business with pleasure.”
“Well, it is over now. You submitted me to the greatest humiliation one person can inflict on another. For that I shall never forgive you.
You owe me something. Well, keep out of my way. Keep away from my son. “
“You ask too much.”
He took my hand and crushed it in his.
“I wouldn’t harm either of you,” he said.
“I happen to be very fond of you both.”
“Who was it said. Fear the Greeks when they bring gifts? I have another comment and that is that when men like you play at being kindly they are at their most deadly.”
“Kate, you’ve changed. Understand that I have changed too.”
“I do not believe you will ever change for anything but the worse.”
“Won’t you give me a chance?”
“No.”
“Cruel Kate.”
“There is only one way in which you can change my feelings towards you.”
“What is that?”
“Stay away from me … and mine. And do you want a word of advice?”
“From you, Kate, that would be golden, I am sure.”
“I had to face a frightening situation. When I discovered I was going to have a child I did not know which way to turn. I had a good friend and I came through; and now I have come to terms with life. You should do the same. You have a son.
You may have more children. You must not blame the Princesse because she did once what you have spent your life doing. At least in her case it was done by consenting parties. “
“Oh Kate,” he said, ‘it does me so much good to be with you. Do you know, I feel more alive just to hear you talk. I really do enjoy being berated by you. Do you remember how you fought me? You really meant to fight, didn’t you? Have pity on me. My marriage is a disaster, I hate my wife’s sickly bastard, I despise my wife. She cannot have more children. Bearing the bastard did something to her. There’s my sad story. “
“There’s a moral in it.”
“What’s that?”
“The wicked never prosper.”
He laughed and I stood up. He stood beside me. I had forgotten how big he was, how overpowering.
“I’d like to have a chance to put my case to you,” he said.
“May I?”
“No,” I answered.
“I am not interested in your case. I can only see you as a barbarian, a savage born out of your century. If you would please me … and God knows you owe me something … you will stay out of my life. Leave me with what I have suffered for and worked for.
These things belong to me and you have no part in them. ” I called:
“Kendal. Bring down the oriflamme. It’s time to go home.”
The Baron went to the boy and helped him with the kite. Kendal was leaping round with excitement while the Baron handed him the kite.
“Thank you for it,” said Kendal.
“It’s the best and biggest kite that was ever in the sky.”
I thought: Already he is making my son like him.
We made our way silently home. I was deeply apprehensive. I had not felt such fear for a long time.
Kendal walked soberly beside me, carefully carrying his oriflamme kite.
Paris under Siege
The peaceful days were over. I was now beset by anxiety because that man had come back into my life.
I talked it over with Nicole. She thought I was worrying unduly.
“Naturally he’s interested in his own son,” she said.
“He just wants to see him and the best way of doing this, as you would not welcome him here, is in the Gardens. What harm is he doing?”
“I know that wherever he is there will be harm. What can I do?”
“Nothing,” replied Nicole calmly.
“You can’t stop the boy going to the Gardens. He’ll want to know why. He’ll be resentful. Let him go. Let him play with the kite there. It’ll be all right.”
“I’m terrified that he will try to take Kendal away from me.”
“He wouldn’t do that. How could he? It would be kidnapping.”
“He is a law unto himself.”
“He wouldn’t do that. Where would he take the child? To Centeville?
"No, of course not. He just wants to see him now and then. “
“Nicole … have you seen him?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“It was only briefly and I thought it would upset you. As a matter of fact, he is concerned about the situation. Everybody is.”
“What situation?”
“We’re on the brink of war. The Emperor is becoming very unpopular.
After what happened to our country at the end of last century we are a sensitive people. “
She managed to subdue my fear for Kendal, but I found it very hard to work while he was out of the house, I arranged that he should go out in the afternoons when I could go with him. In the mornings he should be at his lessons. He was after all nearly five years old.
I knew that he had not seen the Baron for a week. Strangely enough he did not mention him. I had come to realize that children took almost everything for granted. The gentleman was there, he liked to talk to him, he had presented him with a kite . and then he was not there.
That was life, to Kendal.
I was immensely relieved.
But when we had visitors there was continual talk of what they called the uneasy situation.
“How long is the Second Empire going to last?” one of my visitors asked me.
I wondered why he was so intense. I, of course, had not had grandparents who had lived through the Revolution.
“There are people,” I was told, ‘who have felt they were sitting on the edge of a volcano ever since. “
“The Emperor has no right to meddle in Danish and Austro-Prussian wars,” said one.