“Poor Marie-Claude, how you must have suffered!”
“Even now … sometimes I think, is it worth while going on?”
“You have your little boy.”
“William! He’s the cause of all the trouble. But for him I should probably have had more children. I might have grown less scared of Rollo. Who knows, I might have been able to give him what he wanted.”
I was feeling vaguely apprehensive. I guessed that later she might regret having told me so much. She turned to me impulsively.
“Mine is such a wretched story. Don’t let’s talk of it any more. How different it must have been for you. Tell me about it.” “You know a great deal of it. I had my child and I set up in a salon and painted. Clients came to me, and it was all going very well until the war came.”
“The war!” She mused.
“It seemed rather remote to us here in the chateau. Isn’t it strange that Rollo should be able to keep himself aloof from it? It is almost as though he had magical powers. Sometimes I think he is more than a man … a demon perhaps. Someone who has come on earth from some other place. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“I thought you did. He’s always been against this war. He said it was folly and the Emperor was a fool. He thinks of himself after all these centuries as a Norman. He’s powerful … more powerful than any one man should be. He owns a great deal of property … not only here but in England and Italy. It is because he is so rich and powerful that my family wanted the marriage, and it was because of my descent from the Royal Houses of France and Austria that he wanted me. How can people expect a good marriage to be based on such reasons? You are very fortunate, Kate.”
“I know I am fortunate in some ways.”
“Your little boy is beautiful.”
“I think so. And so is yours.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Rollo seems to like your son.” She looked sideways at me and I felt the colour begin to rise from my neck to my forehead.
“He is generally popular,” I said, trying to speak lightly.
“He was pale and thin when he arrived with you and Rollo and Jeanne."
“Who wouldn’t have been after that ordeal.”
“Yes, you were all showing signs of what you had been through. But you have recovered wonderfully now.”
“That’s something I’m thankful for.”
“Rollo has never taken the least interest in any child before. It is remarkable how much attention he bestows on yours. I never quite understood how Rollo came to be there at the precise moment when all that masonry was about to fall on your child.”
“You would have had to be in Paris to understand how things happen.”
“I know people died. What I meant was that it was an odd coincidence that he happened to be there at the precise moment.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“He saved the boy’s life,” I said.
“There is no doubt of that.”
“Do you think that could be the reason why he is so fond of him?”
“I think one would be rather fond of someone whose life one had saved.
It’s getting chilly,” I went on.
“Do you think we ought to sit here?”
I helped her up.
“It was such an interesting talk,” she said, ‘that I forgot I was cold. Before you go I want to show you my spot. The Peak, remember. “
“Oh yes. It’s not far from here, you say.”
“Just over there. Come on.” She took my arm. She seemed a little breathless.
We walked across the grass and there it was before us a wonderful panorama of little hills and woods far away to the horizon.
She pointed.
“Over there would be Paris… if it were near enough for you to see.”
I looked down at the river below. I could see rocks and boulders protruding from the water and yellow coltsfoot growing on the bank.
“Are you scared of heights, Kate?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then why do you hang back?” She had released my arm and stepped nearer to the brink.
“Come on,” she commanded, and I approached the edge.
“Look down,” she said.
I did so. My first thought was that if she had thrown herself over as she had contemplated doing, she would have had little chance of survival.
She was close to me . standing behind me now. She whispered:
“Imagine falling … falling … You wouldn’t know much about it, just that quick gasp … a sort of wild thrill and then down… down . You’d be dead in a matter of seconds.”
I was seized with sudden fear. Why had she brought me here? Why had she talked or she had? What was she implying?
She knows that Kendal is Rollo’s son, I thought. She must believe that we were lovers in Paris and perhaps still are.
She hated him. But would that prevent her resenting the fact that he might love me? That he made it so clear that he loved my child?
I had always known that the Princesse Marie-Claude was impulsive, inclined to be hysterical. I was sure that the ordeal of marriage to Rollo when she was to bear another man’s child had been too much for her. Had it unbalanced her mind?
In those next seconds I was sure that she had brought me here for a purpose and that purpose might well be revenge.
Revenge on me? More likely on him. If she thought he loved me, how could she hurt him more than by destroying me.
It would be so easy. An accident, they would say. The ground crumbled.
She slipped. She went too near the edge.
I felt sure that she was about to push me over the edge . into oblivion.
I turned sharply and stepped away from the edge.
She was looking at me enigmatically, almost resignedly, I thought.
“You were standing very near the edge,” she said, as though admonishing me. She gave a little laugh.
“For a few moments you frightened me. I had a vision of your falling over. Let’s get back to the horses. I’m shivering… with the cold. This is not the time of year to sit about chattering.”
The Way Out
I felt very shaken after that experience. I did convince myself that I had imagined I was in danger, but I tried to remember in detail everything we had said and what had actually happened while we had stood there on the edge of the Peak. She had asked pertinent questions about Kendal; but then I supposed others were asking similar questions. It was true that Rollo did show great interest in Kendal, while at the same time he did not attempt to hide his indifference to the boy who was supposed to be his own.
I felt I was moving towards a climax, and one part of me warned urgently that I ought to get away while another posed the continual question of How and Where?
The miniature of William was progressing. Rollo used to come to the studio as I had asked him to, and it was touching to see William’s delight in having him there showing such an interest in the portrait.
He would look at William kitently and then comment on the miniature.
“You’ve caught the expression in his face,” he would say. Or: “The colour of his skin is not easy to get, I should imagine.”
William sat basking in the unusual interest he was arousing and while I worked I was able to dismiss all my fears and be happy. It was wonderful. Kendal insisted on being there. He was doing a portrait of William too.
“I like a big picture,” he said; and indeed, in spite of his immaturity, he was producing something which had a look of William
So there were the four of us together, and as I painted a serenity crept over me and I wished that we need never break away from those magical moments. Even the children felt it, the deep contentment in that room. Rollo seemed to have forgotten his desire and was ready to settle down in what I can only call an atmosphere of peace.