King of the Castle (45 page)

“Papa was asking for me. So I went over to Carrefour.

“He waits for you to come all the time,” they told me.

“He watches the door. He asks for your mother,” they say.

“He thinks you are your mother perhaps.”

So I sat by his bed and he looked at me with those wild glazed eyes and he said my name and sometimes that of my mother. He murmured of sin and vengeance but he wa not as coherent as he had been. I thought he was dying. I could see that he was working himself up to an excitement and I bent over him to hear what he was saying.

“A child?”

he said.

“There is going to be a child?” I thought he was thinking of what I had told him until I realized he was farther back in time.

“A

child. Honorine is going to have a child. How could this have happened? Oh, but it is God’s vengeance. I knew. and in spite of my knowledge. I went to her and this is the vengeance of the Lord . ‘unto the third and fourth generation . and the seed . the evil seed . will live for ever. “

” ” Papa, I said, “it is all long ago.

Honorine is dead and I am well. There is nothing wrong with me. ” His wild uncomprehending eyes were on me. He murmured: ” They told me she was with child. I remember the day well.

“You are to be a father,” they said. And they smiled at me. not knowing the horror that was in my heart. It had come. Vengeance had come. My sin would not die with me. It would live to the third and fourth generation. I went to her room that night. I stood over her. She was sleeping. I held the pillow in my hands. I could press it over her

face . that would be the end . the end of her and the child.

But she was beautiful. her black hair. the round childishness of her face . and I was a coward, so I fell upon her, embracing her and I knew I could never kill her. “

“You distress yourself, Papa,” I said.

“It is over. Nothing can change what is done. I am here now . and I am well, I assure you.” He was not listening to me and I was thinking of Genevieve and the child who was not yet born. “

“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking of Papa’s grief. And I could not forget Genevieve. I thought of the wildness in her, which frightened Nounou. I knew why. Nounou had known my mother. Nounou’s fears were a reflection of my father’s. I had seen Nounou watching my daughter. I dozed and suffered a nightmare. There was someone in a room with a barred window. I had to kill her; I stood there with a pillow in my hand. It was my mother … but she had Genevieve’s face and in her arms she carried a child … a child who was not yet born.

I made her lie down and I stood over her with the pillow. I woke up crying: “No! No!” I was shivering. I couldn’t rest after that. I was afraid to sleep for fear of more nightmares so I took some of Nounou’s laudanum and then I fell into a long dreamless sleep. “

‘“When I awoke this morning my mind was very clear. If my child is a boy, I thought, he will carry on the line of the de la Talles. And I thought of that evil seed of madness entering the chateau like a ghost that would haunt it for the centuries to come. I should have brought that to them. Genevieve? She has Nounou to care for her. And Nounou knows. Nounou will watch over her. She will see that she never marries. Perhaps Nounou will persuade her to go into a convent as Papa wanted to persuade me. But the child … if it is a boy … Papa lacked the courage. It needs courage. Had Papa killed my mother I

should never have been born. I should have known no pain … nothing. And that is how it would be with the child.”

“Last night a strange thing happened. I awoke from a nightmare and I remembered the peaceful sleep which comes from the little green bottle with the crinkly sides. Crinkly, Nounou told me, because if you should pick it up in the dark you would know it for a poison bottle. Poison!

But it gives such sweet sleep, such relief! I thought how easy it would be to take twice . three times . the dose Nounou gave me for my toothache . and then no more fears . no more worries. The child would know nothing. The child would be saved from coming into the world, to be continually watched for the first sign of the evil seed. I reached for the bottle and I thought: “I will not be a coward as Papa was.” I thought of myself old as he is now. lying on my death-bed, reproaching myself for all the unhappiness I had brought to my children. I looked at the bottle and I was afraid. I took a few drops and slept and in the morning I told myself, “That is not the way.” ‘ “It is night and the fears are with me again. I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of Papa and my mother in the room with the bars, and I am very conscious of the child I am carrying. Nounou, please take care of Genevieve. I leave her to your care. I am wondering now whether I have the courage which Papa lacked. I believe that had he succeeded it would have been better for so many of us. My little Genevieve would never have been born … Nounou would have been saved her fears … I should never have been born. I believe my father was right. I can see the bottle. Green with the crinkly sides. I will put my notebook with the others in the cupboard and Nounou will find them. She loves reading about the days when I was little and says my books bring them back. She will explain to them why … I wonder if I ‘can. I wonder if it is right… Now I shall try to sleep … but if I can’t… In the morning I shall write

that this is how one feels at night. By daylight it seems different.

But Papa lacked the courage . I wonder if I shall have enough. I wonder. “

The writing stopped there. But I knew what had happened. She had found what she would call the courage and because of it she and her unborn child died that night.

The pictures conjured up by Francoise’s writing filled my mind. I saw it all so clearly; the house with the grim secret;

the room with the barred window, the guarded fire; the lamp high in the wall; the wild and passionate woman;

the austere husband who yet found her irresistible; his battle with his senses; his abandonment to passion and the result which to his fanatical mind seemed like vengeance. The birth of Francoise, the watchful eyes, the secluded upbringing . and then marriage to the Comte. I saw why that marriage had been a failure from the beginning.

The girl, innocent and ignorant, had been taught to regard marriage with horror; the disillusion of them both; she finding a virile young husband, he a frigid wife.

And everyone in the chateau had been aware of the unsatisfactory nature of the marriage and when Francoise died through an overdose of laudanum they would have asked themselves: Did her husband have a hand in it?

It was so cruelly unfair and Nounou was to blame. She had read what I had read; she knew what I had just discovered and yet she had allowed the Comte to be suspected of murdering his wife. Why had she not produced this book which explained so clearly?

Well, the truth should be known now.

I looked at the watch pinned to my blouse. The Comte would be in the garden. He would be wondering why I had not joined him as I always did when he was there. We would sit looking at the pond, making plans for

our marriage which would take place as soon as he was sufficiently recovered.

I went down to join him and found him alone impatiently awaiting me.

He saw immediately that something had happened.

“Dallas!” He said my name with that note of tenderness which never failed to move me; now it filled me with anger that he, an innocent man, should have been so unjustly accused.

“I know the truth about Francoise’s death,” I blurted out.

“Everyone shall know now. It is all here.,.. She wrote it herself. It is a clear explanation. She killed herself.”

I saw the effect those words had on him and I went on triumphantly.

“She kept notebooks… little diaries. Nounou has had them all this time. Nounou knew … and she said nothing. She allowed you to be blamed. It’s monstrous. But now everyone shall know.”

“Dallas, my dear, you are excited.”

“Excited! I have discovered this secret. I can now show this … admission … to the world. No one else will dare say that you killed Francoise.”

He laid his hand over mine.

“Tell me what you have discovered,” he said.

“I was determined to find out. I knew of the notebooks. Nounou had showed me some. So I went to her room. She was asleep, her cupboard was open … so I took the last one. I had guessed that there might be some clue there but I had not thought I should find the answer so clear so indisputable.”

“What did you find?”

“She killed herself because of the fear of madness. Her mother was mad and her father told her this when he was rambling after his stroke. He told her how he tried to kill her mother … how he had failed … how much better it would have been if he had. Don’t you see? She was so unworldly. That comes through in her diaries. She would

accept. fatalistically what was put into her mind . But it’s here. as clear as you could wish. Never again shall anyone accuse you of murder. “

“I am glad you found this. Now there need be no secrets between us.

Perhaps I should have told you. I think I should have done in time.

But I was afraid that even you might have betrayed by some look . by some gesture . “

I looked at him searchingly.

“Of course I knew that you had not killed her. You don’t think for a moment I believed that absurd gossip….”

He took my face in his hands and kissed me.

“I like to think,” he said, ‘that you doubted me and loved me just the same. “

“Perhaps it’s true,” I admitted.

“I can’t understand Nounou. How could she have known and kept quiet?”

“For the same reason that I did.”

“As… you did?”

“I knew what happened. She left a note for me, explaining.”

“You knew she took her own life, and why, and yet you let them …”

“Yes, I knew and I let them.”

“But why … why? It’s so unfair … so cruel…”

“I was used to being gossiped about… slandered, I deserved most of it. You know I warned you you would not marry a saint.”

“But… murder.”

“It’s your secret now, Dallas.”

“Mine. But I’m going to make this known …”

“No. There’s something you’ve forgotten.”

“What?”

“Genevieve.”

I stared at him in understanding.

“Yes, Genevieve,” he went on.

“You know her nature. It is wild, excitable. How easy it would be to send her the way her grandmother went. Since you have been here she

has changed a little. Oh, not a great deal. We can’t expect it… but I think that one of the easiest ways to send a highly-strung person toppling into madness would be the continual watching, the suggestion that there is some seed in her which could develop. I don’t want her watched in that way. I want her to have every chance to grow up normally. Francoise took her life for the sake of the child she was to have; I at least can face a little gossip for the sake of our daughter. You understand now, Dallas?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I’m glad, for now there are no secrets between us.”

I looked across the grass to the pond. It was hot now but the afternoon was already late and the evenings were drawing in. It was only a year ago that I had come here. So much, I thought, to happen in one short year.

“You are silent,” he said.

“Tell me what you are thinking.”

“I was thinking of all that has happened since I first came here.

Nothing is as it seemed when I came to the chateau. when I saw you all for the first time. I saw you so differently from what you are . and now I find you capable of this . great sacrifice. “

“My darling, you are too dramatic. This … sacrifice has cost me little. What do I care for what is said of me? You know I am arrogant enough to snap my fingers at the world and say: think what you will.

But although I snap my fingers at the world there is one whose good opinion is of the greatest importance to me . That is why I sit here basking in her approval, allowing her to set the halo on my head. I know of course that she will soon discover it was an illusion. but it’s pleasant to wear it for a while. “

“Why do you always want to denigrate yourself?”

“Because I’m afraid beneath my arrogance.”

“Afraid. You. Of what?”

“That you will stop loving me.”

“And what of me? Don’t you think I have a similar fear?”

“It is comforting to know you can be capable of folly now and then.”

“I think,” I said, ‘that this is the happiest moment of my life. “

He put an arm about me and we sat close together for some minutes looking over the peaceful garden.

“Let’s make it last,” he said.

He took the notebook from me and tore off the cover. Then he struck a match and applied it to the leaves.

I watched the blue and yellow flame creep over the childish handwriting.

Soon there was nothing left of Francoise’s confession.

He said: “It was unwise to keep it. Will you explain to Nounou?”

I nodded. I picked up the cover of the notebook and slipped it into my pocket.

Together we watched a piece of blackened paper tossed across the lawn.

I thought of the future of whispers that would now and then reach me, of the wildness of Genevieve, of the complex nature of the man I had chosen to love. The future was a challenge. But then J had always been one to accept a challenge.