I would take strolls through the beautiful countryside. Often I walked the one and a half miles into the town. The shopkeepers began to know me and I found the recognition pleasant. They would call to me; they found it interesting to chat to me. My knowledge of French being fairly good, I could still amuse them with my occasional misuse of their language. I grew to know many of them. There was the woman who sold her vegetables on a stall every Wednesday when she came in from a village four miles away; girls at the cafe; the boulanger who raked the long crusty loaves out of the oven in his shop and served them hot to his waiting customers; the modiste who aped her Paris counterpart by showing only one hat in her window; the couturiere who crammed hers full of her creations; and even the man in the quincaillerie where I once went with the domestique to buy a saucepan.
Living in a small house brought us closer together and I became on more intimate terms with the servants there than I ever had been in London—with the exception of Rosie, of course. I could imagine the disapproval which would have been expressed by Mrs. Winch or Wilkinson if I had sat in the kitchen having long chats with the servants as I did with Marie, the domestique, or in the garden with Jacques.
But I felt these people were my friends and I wanted to learn as much about them as I could.
Marie had been “crossed in love” and I shared her chagrin. He had been a bold and dashing soldier who had stayed in the town for a few months with his regiment. He had promised to marry her and then he had gone away and left her. After she had talked to me about him she would be heard singing a melancholy dirge:
“Ou t’en vas-tu, soldat de France, Tout equipe, pret au combat? Plein de courage et d’esperance, Ou t’en vas-tu, petit soldat?”
She forgot him after a while and treated us to other melodies like “Au Claire de la Lune” and “Il Pleut Bergere,” for she was not melancholy by nature.
I was not sure when this romance had flourished, for she was at this time near the end of her thirties, I imagined, and she was far from prepossessing, with a faint moustache and several missing teeth. But she was a conscientious worker, good-hearted and very sentimental. I grew fond of her.
I also had a certain friendship with Jacques. He was a widower of three years’ standing; he had six children, several of whom contributed to his support. Most of them lived nearby. He was now courting a widow who was something of a catch because she had inherited ten hectares of very good arable land, left her by her late husband.
I asked every time I saw him how his courtship was progressing. He would always pause and consider, shaking his head. “Widows, Mademoiselle,” he would say, “are very funny creatures. You never know how to take a widow.”
“I am sure you are right, Jacques,” I said.
They were pleased that I was there. Neither my mother nor Everton had ever taken an interest in them—except to give orders. When I spoke to my mother of Marie’s faithless lover and Jacques’ widow she had no notion of what I was talking about and when I explained she said: “You are quaint, Caroline. Of what interest can all that possibly be to you?”
I said: “They are people, Mama. They have their lives just as we have. In London the servants were so much apart. In a small household like this we are closer. It is good in a way. It makes us aware of them … as people.”
It was an unfortunate remark.
“Ah, London,” she sighed. “How different.”
And then she was sunk in melancholy, remembering.
I soon became acquainted with some of our neighbours. I visited the flower growers and saw how they distilled their essences and heard how they sold them to the parfumeurs all over France. It was very interesting. They had acres and acres on which they grew their flowers and I was amazed to discover how many were needed to produce one small flagon of perfume.
The scent of the jasmine was exquisite. They told me they gathered it in July and August but there was a second flowering in October, which was when the flowers were really at their best.
The roses, from which they made attar of roses, were wonderful.
The Claremonts employed several people from the town who came riding in on their bicycles in the early morning. I often saw them going home after the day’s work.
I soon made the acquaintance of the Dubussons. I found them charming. It was true that their chateau was somewhat dilapidated. There were chickens in one of the courtyards and it really was more like a farmhouse than a castle. True, it had the usual pepper-pot towers, which gave it an air of dignity, and the Dubussons were as proud of their home as the Landowers and Tressidors were of theirs.
I would sit in the big salon drinking wine with Monsieur and Madame Dubusson, and they would tell me how times had changed since the days of their grandeur. Their son and his wife were with them and they were very hard-working. Sometimes the family visited us and we were invited to the chateau. Then my mother would wear one of her exquisite gowns; Everton would spend a long time doing her hair and they would try to pretend it was like one of the old engagements which my mother had had in such abundance in the old days.
The Dubussons kept an excellent table, and Monsieur Dubusson liked a game of cards. We played a sort of whist. Monsieur Dubusson enjoyed a game of piquet—and so did my mother—but as only two could play at that, it was not one of the games which took place in the evening. Often I went over to see them in the afternoon and he and I would play piquet together, or a little chess, which he liked better. I had learned the rudiments of the game when I was at school in France and he liked to instruct me.
But although I could find plenty to occupy me, I was beginning to feel somewhat restless. I was thinking more and more of Cornwall and I wondered a great deal about the Landowers and how they liked living in their comparatively humble farmhouse. I wrote to Cousin Mary and told her that I should love to come and see her one day.
Her reply was enthusiastic. When was I coming?
I had been three months with my mother. Autumn had come, and I was thinking more and more longingly of Cornwall. I wrote to Cousin Mary and told her that I would come at the beginning of October.
I was quite surprised when I told my mother what I had done.
“Going away from me!” she cried. “Caroline, I shall miss you.”
“Oh, Mama,” I protested. “You’ll get along very well without me.”
“You like it, do you, with Cousin Mary? I always heard she was something of an ogre.”
“She can be a little gruff, but when you get to know her you understand the sort of person she is. I grew very fond of her.”
“Robert disliked her intensely.”
“That was because she had the house … her rightful property.”
“It has been so wonderful for me to have you here.”
I said nothing, and when I looked up I saw the tears were falling down her cheeks.
Everton said to me: “Your mother will miss you. She has been so much better since you came.”
“Was she very bad before?”
“She has cheered up wonderfully.”
“She is not really ill, Everton.”
“There is a sickness of the mind, Miss Caroline. She pines for the life she has left, and I am afraid she will always do so.”
“But was she really contented when she was there?”
“She loved that life … all the people … all the admiration. It was everything to her.”
“But she left it.”
“For the Captain. It was a great mistake. But she would never have gone if she had not been forced to do so.”
The old guilt I had felt came surging back. I was the one who had carelessly betrayed her. If I had not met Robert Tressidor on the stairs and blurted out that I had seen the runaway horse, she might still have been in London, a rich woman. Captain Carmichael might not have died, but could be pursuing his career in the Army.