“There has to be a son, Yvette,” she said.
“If this child is a son I shall never go through it again. If it is a girl …” Then she shivered and clung to me trembling. I started to hate him then. “
“After all,” I said, ‘it is what one expects of marriage. Perhaps the trouble was that Ursule had not been prepared. “
“You find excuses for him. Poor Ursule! How ill she was before Marguerite’s birth. Nou-Nou was in terror that she would never come through. But we had the best doctors, the best midwife and at last the day came when the child was born. I shall never forget her face when she was told it was a girl. She was very, very ill and the doctors said that if she had another child she would run such risks that could well cost her her life.
“She must make no more attempts to have children,” said the doctors. You would have thought she was a Queen being crowned. Nou-Nou and I cried together in our relief. It was as though our darling was restored to us. “
“The Comte must have been a very disappointed man.”
“He was mad with rage. He used to go out riding or driving and they said he was like a madman. He was in a dilemma. They said he cursed the day he had married. He had an invalid wife … one daughter and no son. You must have heard that he killed a boy.”
“Yes. Leon’s twin brother.”
“It was nothing short of murder.”
“It was not done purposely. It was an accident. And he compensated the family. I have heard he was very good to them. We know what he did for Leon.”
“It cost him nothing. That is the sort of man he is … ruthless. Then he brought Etienne to the chateau … his bastard son … to show her that if she could not give him sons others could.
It was a cruel thing to do. “
“Was she hurt?”
“She said to me once: ” I don’t care, Yvette, as long as I do not have to submit. He may have twenty bastard sons here as long as I don’t have to try to give him a legal one. ” You see how ruthless he is. He cares so little for his wife’s feelings that he brings Etienne here.
Etienne’s hopes are raised; so are those of his mother. They are hoping that Etienne will be legitimized and made the Comte’s heir, but he keeps them on tenterhooks. It amuses him. “
“One can only feel sorry for everyone concerned,” I said. She looked at me sharply and shook her head as though in despair.
I went on: “At least Ursule had her daughter.”
“She never cared greatly for Marguerite. I think the child reminded her of her birth and all she had suffered.”
“It was not Marguerite’s fault,” I said sharply.
“I should have thought it would have been natural for a mother to care for her child.”
“Marguerite soon showed herself well able to look after herself.
Nou-Nou was not very interested in the child either. Her care fell mostly to me. I was very drawn to her. She was such a gay little thing, vivacious, very wayward, impulsive . well, she has not changed much. “
“I am surprised that Ursule was indifferent to her.”
“She was always listless at this time. Soon after Marguerite’s birth she suffered another shock. Her mother died. She had been very fond of her mother and her death was a great blow to her.”
“So it was unexpected.”
Yvette was silent for a while, then she said: Her mother took her own life. ” I was startled.
“Yes,” went on Yvette.
“It was a great shock to us all. We did not know that she was ill. She had been suffering some internal pains but she had mentioned this for some time. But when the pain increased she could keep it secret no longer. When she heard that nothing could be done for it, she took an overdose of a sleeping draught.”
“Like … Ursule,” I murmured.
“No,” said Yvette firmly.
“Not like Ursule. Ursule would never have taken her own life. I know she wouldn’t. We talked of this again and again. Ursule was deeply religious. She believed in an after-life. She used to say to me: ” No matter what one suffers here, Yvette, it is all fleeting. That’s what I tell myself. We must endure it and the greater the suffering, the more rejoicing there will be when one comes to rest. My mother suffered pain and would have suffered more and she could not endure it. Oh, if only she had waited. ” Then she turned to me and gripped my hands and said:
“If only I had known. If only I could have talked to her …”
“And yet when something similar happened to her …”
“She was not in great pain then. I know.”
“You were not at the chateau,” I reminded her.
“When I left the chateau, we wrote to each other. We wrote every week.
She wanted to know every detail of my life and she gave me every detail of hers. She opened her heart to me. She kept nothing back.
When I left we had made this pact. Later she wrote that our letters were more revealing than our daily contacts. She said that we had become even closer through the pen than we had been before because it was so much easier to say exactly what one meant on paper. That was why I learned so much about her . when I was away from her, more than when I was with her. That is why I know that she would never have killed herself. “
“How then did she die?”
“Someone murdered her,” she said.
I went to my room and stayed there. I did not want to talk of Ursule’s death. I would not believe what Yvette was suggesting. That Yvette believed the Comte had killed his wife was without question.
And I knew that the intention of these conversations was to warn me.
In her mind she had put me with those women who had become fascinated by him and were picked up and made much of for a while and before they were cast off . minor affaires in a long stream of such, some of greater importance than others, like the one which had brought him Etienne.
In spite of everything I would not believe this of him. That he had had adventures I knew-indeed, when had he ever made a secret of that? but that our relationship was different, I was certain.
At times I believed I would be ready to forget everything that had gone before. Everything? Murder? But I would not believe he had killed his wife. He had killed Leon’s brother but that was different a reckless, thoughtless act which had ended in tragedy but which was quite different from premeditated murder.
While I was brooding there the door opened and Margot looked in. She was not quite her exuberant self.
“Is something wrong?” I cried, raising myself on my arm, for I was lying on my bed.
She sat on the chair near the mirror and looked at me frowning.
She nodded slowly.
“What’s happened? Chariot…?”
“Is as beautiful and bonny as ever.”
Then what? “
“It’s a note I’ve had. Armand said a woman had given it to him and it was to be delivered either to me or to you.”
“A note? Armand?”
“Please don’t repeat everything I say, Minelle. It maddens me.”
“Why should a woman give a note to Armand?”
“Because she must have known he comes from the chateau.”
Armand was a groom we had brought with us from the Chateau Silvaine.
Etienne had said he was a good man and had recommended us to bring him with us.
Where’s the note? ” I asked.
She held out a piece of paper. I took it and read:
It would be well for one of you to come to the Cafe des Fleurs at ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. You will be sorry if you fail. I know about the baby.
I stared at her.
“Who on earth could it be …?”
She shook her head impatiently.