I was still thinking about the man in the dark wig when I rose and walked away. It did seem odd that he had been at the inn where we bad stayed. But perhaps he lived here. I must make discreet enquiries about him.
I walked back to the ribbon shop having decided to buy some lace which I had seen there. I came out of the shop and walked past the patisserie. The man was no longer sitting at the table.
I left the town and began the short walk to the chateau. When I reached the incline I turned and looked back. The man was walking along in the direction I had come as though following me at a discreet distance.
I went to the chateau still thinking of him.
It was not difficult to lure Yvette to talk of Ursule. I found her sitting in the gardens, some sewing in her hands, and I went to join her.
“We should make the most of this,” she said.
“It won’t last long.”
“You mean this peace.”
She nodded.
“I wonder what’s happening in Paris. It must be very hot there. It’s strange how heat makes tempers rise. At night people will be out in the streets. They will be gathering at the Palais Royale. There’ll be speeches and oaths and threats.”
“The government may have a solution. I believe the Comte is attending meetings of the council there.”
Yvette shook her head.
“The hatred is too strong … tempered with envy. There is little that can be done now. If the mob were to rise I would not care to be a member of the aristocracy who fell into its hands.”
I shivered, thinking of him, arrogant, dignified, seeming omnipotent in his own castle. It would be different in the streets of Paris.
“It is the reckoning,” said Yvette.
“The Comte Fontaine Delibes has been a despotic ruler. His word was law. It is time he was overthrown.”
“Why did Ursule marry him?” I asked.
“Poor child, she had no choice.”
“I thought the Brousseaux doted on her.”
“So they did, but they wanted the best possible marriage for her.
There could not have been a grander . outside royalty. They wanted honours for her. Happiness, they thought, would follow. She would have a fine chateau as her home, a grand name, a husband who was well known for the part he played in both Paris and the country. That he was the devil incarnate did not seem of any importance. “
“Was he so bad?” I asked almost plaintively, wanting her to say something good of him.
“When they were married he was not very old … only a year or so older than she was … but old in sin. A man like that is mature at fourteen. You may look disbelieving but I can assure you he had had his adventures even then. He was eighteen at the time of his marriage.
He already had an established mistress. You know her. “
“Gabrielle LeGrand yes.”
“And she had borne him a son. You know of this, how Etienne was brought to the chateau. Can you think of any thing more cruel than to bring a son by another woman to flaunt before your wife because she is unable to bear more children?”
“It is heartless, I agree.”
“Heartless indeed. He has no heart. He has never thought anything of greater importance than the gratification of his desires.”
“I should have thought with such parents, with NouNou and you, Ursule could have refused to marry him.”
“You know him.” She looked at me obliquely and I wondered what rumours she had heard about me and the Comte. Clearly she had heard something, for this was the reason behind her vehemence. She was warning me.
“There is about him a certain charm. It’s a sort of devilish allure.
It seems irresistible to quite a lot of women. To become involved with him is like stepping on to shifting sands. I believe they can be very beautiful, inviting you to walk on them and as soon as you take your first step you begin to sink, and unless youhave the wit and power to withdraw quickly you are lost. “
“Do you really think anyone is entirely evil?”
“I think some people glory in the power they have over others. They see themselves towering above everyone else. Their needs, their desires are all-important. They must be satisfied no matter who suffers in the process of gratification.”
“He looked after you when you left,” I reminded her.
“He gave you a home and enabled you to have Jose and live in comfort.”
“I thought it was good of him at the time. Later ]. began to think he might have a motive.”
“What motive could he have had?”
“He might have wanted me out of the way.”
“Why?”
“He might have had plans for Ursule.”
“You can’t mean…”
“My dear Mademoiselle, I am surprised that a young woman of your apparent good sense should allow herself to be so deceived. But that has happened to others. My poor little Ursule! I remember well the night they sent for her. She went down to the salon and was presented to him. The marriage contracts were already drawn up. Oh, it was to be such a grand match! The Brousseau family is an ancient one, but it had lost some of its wealth through the centuries. His family had retained theirs. Thus the family were gaining a son-in-law of equal nobility and vastly greater wealth and importance. They needed money and there was a very good marriage settlement which far exceeded the dowry they had to provide for their daughter. It was a most advantageous marriage-smiled on by both sides.”
“And Ursule?”
“He charmed her … as he has many. She came to me afterwards … she always came to me. She would go to Nou-Nou as a child who has hurt itself and wants to be kissed and made better. To me she confided her real problems. She was bemused.
“Yvette,” she said, “I never saw anyone like him. Of course I haven’t. There isn’t anyone like him.”
She walked about in a sort of dream. She was so innocent. She knew nothing of the world. Life for her then was a romantic dream. “
“And when you saw him?”
“I did not know him then. I thought he had all the charm and grace which had attracted her. I was to learn later the sort of life he had led. We thought, both Nou-Nou and I, that he was almost worthy of her.
How quickly we were disillusioned. “
“How quickly?” I persisted.
They went to one of his country homes for the honeymoon. It was Villers Brabante, a beautiful house, small by chateau standards, but charmingly set in rural surroundings . quite peaceful . the ideal place for a honeymoon . providing of course that one has the ideal husband. He was far from that. “
“How did you know?”
“One only had to look at her. We … Nou-Nou and I … had gone on to Silvaine to be ready for them when they came back. It was the first time Nou-Nou had been parted from her. She was like a hen who has lost her chick. She was clucking all the time, getting distracted. She would sit up at the watch tower with the watchman looking out for their return. Then they came … and one took at her face and we knew. She was bewildered. Poor child, she had been taught nothing of life … particularly life lived with a man like that. She was bewildered and frightened. Frightened of him … frightened of everything. In two weeks she was quite changed.”
“He was young too,” I said in his defence.
“Young in years, old in experience. He must have found her very different from the loose women he had known. I think she was probably pregnant when they came back, for soon after it was obvious. That too was a great trial for her. She was terrified of having a child. We were closer than ever then. She turned to me.
“There are things I can’t talk of to Nou-Nou,” she used to say, and she told me how she had disappointed him, how she wanted to be alone, how marriage was so different from what she had thought it would be. We used to sit together during the waiting months and she told me something of what she called her ordeal. And now another awaited her: the birth of her child.