“Be serious, Margot. I want to learn something about the people at the castle before I go there. ” ” Very well. I’m leading up to that. I was going to tell you, about Etienne-the crop of my father’s earliest wild oat; Etienne lives at the chateau. He is my father’s son. “
“I thought you said there was no son.”
“Minelle, you are being obtuse. He is my father’s illegitimate son. Papa was only sixteen when Etienne was born.
How hej can dare Sit in judgement on me I don’t know. Not only is!
there one law for the rich and one for the poor, but one for men and one for women. I was born a year after my parent’s marriage. My mother suffered terribly and nearly died. However, both she and I managed to survive the ordeal of my getting born but the result was that to have another child would endanger her life. So there was my father-who had had everything he wanted in life up to that time-at the age of eighteen, head of a noble house, faced with the fact that he would never have a son. And of course what every man wants especially one who has a great name to preserve -is a son, and not only one, for he must be doubly sure. “
That must have been a great blow. “
“It was not as though he loved my mother. I always thought that if she had stood up to him a little he might have thought more of her. She never did, though. She always avoided him and they saw very little of each other. She spends most of her time in her rooms waited on by NouNou, her old nurse, who defends her like a dragon breathing fire, and even daring to stand up to Papa. But I must tell you about Etienne.”
Yes, do tell me about Etienne. “
Naturally I wasn’t there at the time but I have heard servants talk.
It was considered amusing that my father should have shown his virility at such an early age. Etienne came into the world to a flourish of trumpets metaphorically speaking-and has had a very high opinion of himself ever since. He is cast in the same mould as my father-which is not surprising since he is his son. Well, when it was known that my father could have no more children and the hopes of a legitimate son were no more, my father brought Etienne to the chateau and he was treated like a legitimate son. He has been educated as such and is often with my father. Everyone knows that he is a bastard and that infuriates him, but he hopes to inherit the estates if not the title. He can be very moody and has outbursts of temper which terrify people. If my mother died and my father married again I don’t know what Etienne would do. “
I can see how unfair he would consider that. “
“Poor Etienne! He is my father all over again … but not quite. You know how it is with people who are not quite what they wish to be. Etienne flaunts his nobility, if you know what I mean. I have seen him whip a young boy who called him the Bastard. But he is very attractive. The girls in the servants’ quarters will verify that. Etienne is a Count in a ways except that his mother was not married to his father and he is so determined that no one shall remember that that he can’t forget it himself. Oh and then … Leon.”
“Another man?”
“Leon’s case is very different. Leon has no need to whip sma boys. He is no bastard. He was born in holy wedlock. H parents were peasants and it would be no use his trying t pretend otherwise, even if he wanted to, for everyone know it. Leon, though, has received the same education as Etienn and no one would guess he was the son of peasants if the did not know it. Leon therefore has an air of nobility which sits easily on him and he would laugh if anyone called nil Peasant. To see Leon in his fine velvet jacket and buck ski breeches you would say he was an aristocrat. Which prove of course, that where a man is brought up can have fa more effect on him than who his parents were. “
I have always been inclined to believe that. But tell m more of Leon. Why is he at the chateau?
“It is rather a romantic story. He came to the chateau when he was six. I was too young to remember. Actually it was soon after I was born and my father had just realized that m mother could have no more children. He was very angry . bitter against a fate which had married him to a woman will had become barren after the birth of her first child . daughter . and then had had the temerity to go on living “Margot!”
“Dear Minelle, are we speaking the truth or not? If m mother had died when I was born my father would have married again after a suitable interval and I might have had numerous half-sisters and what is all-important, brothers Then my little peccadillo might not have been so important But Maman went on living … most inconsiderate of the . and Papa was a prisoner of a kind … caught by a crue fate, trapped, married to a woman who could be of no use ti him.”
This is no way to talk of your parents. “
“Very well. I will tell you they are devoted to each other. He never leaves her side. All his thoughts are for her. I that what you want?”
“Don’t be silly, Margot. Naturally I want the truth, bu tempered with respect.”
“How amusing you are I It is not a matter of respect but to tell you how things stand. That’s what you asked for, did you not? Do you want to hear or don’t you?”
“I want to know as much as possible about the chateau before I go there.”
“Then don’t expect to hear fairy tales. My father is no charming prince, I do assure you. When he knew that he was saddled with a barren wife he was so angry that he took his horse and rode it till it dropped with exhaustion. Riding madly like that seemed to be the way he gave an outlet to his fury. The household was glad to get him out of the way for woe betide any of them who angered him. The people used to call him the Devil on Horseback and when they saw him kept out of the way.”
I was startled because that was the name I had given him when I had first seen him. It fitted him absolutely.
“Sometimes,” went on Margot, “Papa travelled in his cabriolet which he drove himself using the most spirited horses in his stables. This was more dangerous than when he rode his horse, and one day he was riding in this wild and reckless fashion through the village of Lapine, which was about ten kilos from the chateau, when he ran over a child and killed it.”
“How dreadful!”
“I think he was sorry.”
“I should hope he was.”
It brought him to his senses, I think. But let me tell you about Leon. He is the twin brother of the boy who was killed. The mother was nearly demented. She so far forgot what she owed her overlord that she came to the castle and tried to stab him. He overpowered her easily.
He could have had her executed for attempted murder but he didn’t. “
“How good of him!” I said with sarcasm.
“I suppose he realized that she was merely attempting to do to him what he did to her child.”
“Exactly. However, he talked to her. He told her he deeply regretted his action and he understood her desire for revenge. He would try to atone. The dead boy had a twin brother. And she had … how many children was it? I forget. About ten. He would recompense her for the loss of the child by giving her a purse which would be commensurate with what her ;
would have earned for her had he lived for sixty years. T was not all.
He would take the boy’s twin and he should brought up in the chateau as a member of the household. This the terrible accident could be turned into a stroke of go fortune for the family. “
I don’t see how anything could make up for the loss the child. “
You do not know these peasants. Their children mean much money to them. They have so many that they ci spare one without too much regret. particularly when I loss is going to bring great rewards. “