“I am surprised that Yvette has agreed to this after being employed by your father.”
“Yvette knows that I’ll never be happy without him and if she is here as his nurse … you see what I mean.”
“I see absolutely.”
Then let us get on with the plan. Yvette will wait until she sees you close by. You will see her place the basket in the shrubbery. She will disappear and then you merely go and find darling Chariot. “
I thought of the plan from all angles and I had to admit that it could work providing everything went according to our schedule.
I began to grow excited about it although I had considerable misgivings. But then ever since I had known of Chariot’s existence before his birth. I had realized that considerable difficulties would be involved.
Thus, on a bright morning, I rose from my bed a little before six, put on shoes and a wrap and went to the shrubbery. Yvette was there. She was carrying the basket which at my approach, with infinite care, she placed in the bushes. As soon as she had put it down I went swiftly to it. It was almost as Margot had described it, for Chariot himself opened his eyes and gave me such a knowing look and a crowing laugh that it was as though he were fully aware of the conspiracy.
I carried the basket into the castle. One of the footmen who was in the hall stared at me in amazement.
I said: “A child has been left in the shrubbery.”
He was speechless. He could only stare disbelievingly at Chariot. He put a hand on the shawl which was wrapped round the baby and them-at her splendid gold braid on his cuifs immediately attracted Chariot’s attention. He put out a plump hand to grasp it but the footman jumped back as though there was a snake in the basket instead of a baby.
“He won’t bite,” I said, and I realized I had named the child’s sex.
Chariot crowed as though with derision for us both.
“Mademoiselle, what will you do with it?”
I said: I think I must ask Madame. It will be for her to decide. “
At that moment Madame herself appeared on the staircase, poised, ready to play her part.
“What is it?” she demanded, a little imperiously I thought.
“Cousin, what are you doing up at this hour of the morning disturbing us all?”
As though she did not know and was not completely ready for her role in this drama which was somehow more like a comedy.
“Margot,” I said, “I have found a baby.”
“Pound a what! A baby! What nonsense I Are you playing some game?
Where could you find a . But it is! What can it mean? “
Her eyes were dancing, her cheeks flushed. She was enjoying this. It was dangerous, but that would only add to her enjoyment.
“A baby!” she cried.
“Really, Cousin, how could you find a baby! But what a little darling. Is it not adorable?”
She played her part better than I and I knew what it cost to caH Chariot “it”
Margot turned to the footman.
“Don’t you think this is a beautiful child, Jean?” The footman looked blank and she went on impatiently.
“I never saw a more beautiful child. “
She leaned over the basket. Chariot regarded her solemnly.
“He looks like a Chariot to me. Does he to you, Cousin?”
“That could well be his name,” I admitted.
“From now on he is Chariot. I must take him to my husband. How excited he will be to know that we have a baby.”
Robert had come down to see what had happened to her. He stood on the stairs and I thought how young he looked, how little aware of the real nature of the girl he had married.
Margot ran to him and slipped her arm through his. He smiled at her.
There was no doubt that he was very much in love with her.
“What has happened, my dearest?” he asked.
“Oh Robert, such a marvelous thing. Minelle has found a baby.”
The poor young man looked bewildered as well he might.
She babbled on; “Yes, he was in the bushes. He must have been left there. Minelle found him this morning. Isn’t he enchanting?”
“We must find his parents,” said Robert.
“Oh yes,” she interrupted impatiently.
“Later … perhaps. Oh look, what a little darling. See how contentedly he comes to me.”
She picked him up in her arms while Robert watched them fondly, thinking, no doubt, of the children they would have.
The news was soon spreading through the chateau. The Comte and Comtesse came to inspect the child. They were indulgent when they saw Margot’s delight in him. Their thoughts were obvious. She will make a good mother, after all, which must have been comforting for before the arrival of the baby no one would have connected Margot with doting motherhood.
It seemed that the entire chateau revolved round the baby. The Comte said that they would soon find the parents. Someone must know whose the child was. It was very strange, the Comtesse pointed out, that the baby had obviously been very well cared for. He must be almost a year old. Look at his clothes. They had not come from some poor home.
She was not as sure as the Comte that it would be possible to find his parents.
For several days enquiries were made and the whole of the town knew about the baby up at the chateau. It was the
Comte’s opinion that someone had had to leave the country suddenly times being what they were and they had left the baby near the chateau knowing that the Grassevilles would never allow it to suffer neglect. It was the first time I had heard a suggestion in Grasseville that times were changing. The Comtesse did not agree. She believed that no parents would leave a child behind. In her opinion some poor mother had stolen the clothes from her employer and left the baby at the chateau in the hope that there would be a good life for him there.
Whatever they thought. Chariot remained and Margot took charge of him to the amusement of her new family. She was so excited by the presence of the baby, so delighted to look after him, that they were all astonished and being the kind of people they were the baby began to take charge of them. It might have been that Chariot possessed some special charm but he very quickly became the darling of the household.
He had his mother’s imperious ways and his father’s adventurous nature. However, the fact remained that Margot persuaded Robert that she could never be really happy again if Chariot were taken away from her and that he must be the first of that big family they had promised themselves.
The nursery was refurbished. We went for forages into the market. In the streets we were stopped and asked how the baby was getting on.
“And the little one is settling in, eh? What a happy little boy to have come to the chateau and Madame.”
Chariot may have made an inopportune entry into the world but he was fast taking up an important place in it. Even the Comte was hoping that no one would come to claim the child.
Margot declared that she had never been so happy in her life and it really seemed so. She glowed. She laughed a great deal and only I knew that it was the laughter of triumph and that she was congratulating herself on her cleverness.
The time has come,” she told me, ‘to put into effect the second part of our plan. I have hinted to Robert that we need a nurse and who better than a trusted woman who knew me as a baby and was actually in my nursery.”
It was only a matter of time before Yvette came to Grasseville.
II
I had liked Yvette from the moment I had seen her but it had not occurred to me that her coming would be so important to me.
When she arrived at the castle Margot embraced her affectionately.
“It is wonderful that you were able to come,” she said, for the benefit of the servants.