She declared Margot in a good state, carrying the baby just as she should.
“It’ll be a boy,” she said and added: “Like as not. I’m promising nothing. It’s just the way you’re carrying it.”
She called once a week and confided to me that she knew my cousin was a very special lady, by which I gathered that she had been paid rather more than she usually was to attend to her.
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 remember. 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 child-< 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 will have to forget this ever happened. Never speak of it, but a the same time regard it as a lesson. Never let this happen 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. Then she moved awkwardly in her chair and went on: “It’s peaceful here. Do you find it so? It will be different at the chateau 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 was often left in the country and spent most of my life then The chateau was built in the thirteenth century. The great tower the keep is what you see first. In the old days they used to be a ” Watch” in the tower which meant that there was always a man there and it was his duty to give was mine when an enemy approached. Even now we have a man ther and he gives a warning when guests are arriving by ringing 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. “