The Demon Lover (36 page)

“I had many clients.”

“It is a long time since we last met. Six years … or more. My little William must be about the same age as your boy.”

“Yes, I dare say.”

The Baron had said little. He was watching us intently.

He talked mostly to Kendal, who wanted to know if they would defend the castle if the Germans came here.

“To the last man,” the Baron told him.

“Are there battlements?”

“There are indeed.”

“Shall we pour boiling oil down on the invaders when they use their battering rams?”

“Boiling oil and tar,” said the Baron solemnly.

The Princesse smiled at me and lifted her shoulders.

“War, war …” she said.

“Talk of war. I’m tired of war.

Mademoiselle Collison, after we have finished I will come to your room and talk to you. You need clothes. You must need many things. “

“We did leave in a great hurry,” I explained, ‘and so brought nothing with us. “

“I am sure we can help.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, ‘there is some seamstress who could make something for us. I hope soon to be working again. I do have money.

Money was not the problem in Paris. “

“I am sure we can arrange something,” she said.

There was a little chicken after the fish. The menu had been carefully chosen. It was the first real meal I had had for months and I felt revitalized. There was a faint colour in Kendal’s cheeks. I could see he was thoroughly enjoying this adventure.

The Baron took him off after the meal and the Princesse came to my room with me.

When the door of my room shut on us, she seemed to change. She dropped the pose of chat elaine and became the young girl I had known.

“Life is odd,” she said.

“Fancy seeing you again. I’ve thought of you every time I’ve looked at the miniatures, and of course I heard about your salon in Paris. You really became well known, didn’t you? It seems such a long time ago.”

“It is.”

“Kate,” she said.

“I called you Kate, didn’t I? I liked you … from the start I liked you. You had an air of independence about you.

“Take it or leave it. If you don’t like me, employ another artist.” You have a child now. Bertrand de Mortemer’s, I suppose. Yet you didn’t marry him . even though there was a child. “

“No,” I said, “I didn’t marry him.”

“And you had a child … and you were not married!”

“That’s right.”

“You were brave.”

“I didn’t want to marry. We … er … didn’t want to marry each other.”

“So you had the child. How did you manage?”

“I was befriended, and then I had the salon and people came, and in that world it didn’t seem to matter so much as it would in a more conventional one … If you understand.”

“I do. I wish I had been in a less conventional world. Your boy is beautiful. He needs a good deal of feeding up.”

“He has been four months in a siege. We were near starvation when we came out.”

“And the Baron brought you out. My noble husband! What was he doing in ” You must ask him. “

“He never tells me anything.” She hesitated, and I think she was on the verge of a confidence, but she seemed suddenly to realize that she might be somewhat indiscreet.

“I’ll bring some clothes for you to try,” she said.

“And the seamstress?”

“That’s for later. At first let me give you something. You are taller than I and so thin … That might help … your being thin. You won’t take up so much. I’ll send one of the maids in with some things.” She looked at me wistfully.

“When I used to hear about you in that Paris salon, I envied you. I missed Paris. I hate it here… this gloomy old castle. I feel like a prisoner sometimes. I get so tired. I have to rest a lot. It is since William’s birth.”

She turned away and went to the door.

I sat down. The food was having its effect and made me feel sleepy. I lay on the bed for a while but did not sleep. Now that my mind was freed from the preoccupation with food, I

began to see the situation in which I found myself more clearly.

I could not go on here. It was only a temporary respite. Even if I stayed in the Loge I should be living on the Baron’s bounty and I could not endure that for long. I must get back to Paris. But how could I get back to Paris? It would be months perhaps a year before there would be a hope for me to work there.

I kept thinking of his words: “You have to consider the boy.”

Yes, I had to consider Kendal. He must be my first responsibility. No matter what personal humiliation I suffered, as long as Kendal profited that was all I must think of. After all, the Baron was his father. It was not like taking from a stranger.

The maid came in with three dresses, and some petticoats and undergarments.

“The Princesse asked if you would try these, Madame,” she said.

I thanked her and tried on the dresses. They were not a good fit, but they would suffice until I could get something made.

I had to admit to myself that it was a great relief to get out of the clothes which I had worn for so long.

As I changed into a green velvet dress, I thought: There is nothing I can do but accept what fate has thrust upon me. I need rest as well as food; my mind needs adjusting. One does not go through the ordeal of losing a great friend, one’s father, and four months of starvation with death threatening at every turn without needing some adjustment.

Until this was made I must shelve other problems.

Kendal and I remained for a week in the castle while the Loge was prepared for us. The Baron had decreed that after our ordeal we needed to rest there for a while.

D.

L.

-K

R

His word was law in the castle and no one questioned anything he commanded. That he should arrive with two women and a child from the siege of Paris was treated as though it were a part of the natural course of events-because that was how he wished it to be accepted.

When I thought about it, I could see that a perfectly logical explanation could be put on what had happened. He had found himself in Paris; he had seen a child about to be crushed to death and had thrown himself on the child and borne the brunt of the collapse of bricks and mortar. He had discovered the child to be the son of an artist whom he had once employed and because of the disorder in the Paris streets and the inability to get medical attention, she had taken him in injured as he was and he had stayed in her house to be nursed by her. It was all perfectly logical except one thing. He could not hide his affection for Kendal; and when it was considered how he behaved towards Williamwho was generally accepted as his son this was very strange. Moreover, William was small and dark with his mother’s Valois nose. He seemed to be a nervous child but I quickly deduced that this was due to the treatment he had received. The man he believed to be his father ignored him and his mother seemed indifferent towards him too. Poor child, he had been made to feel that his presence in this life was rather unnecessary.

So of course they were wondering about us. Then there was the fact that the Princesse constantly referred to me as Mademoiselle Collison -and indeed I had been so called when I visited the castle all those years ago, and many of them remembered me. Moreover, the resemblance between Kendal and the Baron was becoming more obvious every day.

Oh yes, understandably there were speculations.

They were strange days. I think that if I had been my previous self I should never have stayed at the castle. But I had been more weakened by that sojourn in Paris than I

realized. I was still suffering from the shock of Nicole’s death, which had been temporarily muted by other momentous events, but now that I had left Paris behind me, I thought of Nicole a great deal.

Then again there was the death of my father. The days of my childhood were constantly in my mind when my father had been closer to me than any other person. I was only now realizing that I should never see him again. So I mourned the two of them. I longed to hear what was happening to Clare. So my thoughts were dominated by my father and Nicole. I mourned them both afresh. The knowledge that it was the Baron who had sent Nicole to care for me made no difference to my feelings for her. She would always be remembered in my heart as my good friend-in-need, and it was only now that I fully realized what a big gap her death following on that of my father had made in my life.

As for the Baron, I did not want to think of him. Not that I could stop myself. I had to accept the fact that my feelings towards him had changed. I remembered so much about him-his lying on that bed suffering pain and refusing to admit it; the tenderness I sometimes saw in his face, the relief when I came into the room; his love for Kendal for love it was, although strongly tinged with the pride of possession.

“This is my son!” That was what he thought every time he looked at Kendal; and the fact that he so resembled him made the boy doubly endearing to him.

Somewhere at the back of my mind was the thought that he would never let Kendal go. And what would that mean to me?

It seemed that I was in a hopeless situation, and I saw it more clearly since I had come to the castle.

The Baron wanted his son. I believed that if he were free he would attempt to make me marry him. I should, of course, refuse; but he would attempt to bring it about. He always got what he wanted and now he wanted Kendal.

Two doctors came to the castle to look at the Baron’s leg.

While they were there he insisted that all of us-Kendal, Jeanne and myself-should be examined to make sure that the months of famine had not impaired our health. We were assured that we had come through without harm but that we needed good nourishing food to make us really healthy again.

That was true, I knew; and it was a great joy to see the change in Kendalevery day.

I walked often during those days a little at first and gradually increasing the distance. I used to wander down to the edge of the moat and sit there remembering the day when he had come behind me and seen what I was sketching.

Now he found me there, and we sat in silence, looking at the water.

Then he said: “We came through, Kate. There were times when I thought we should never get out of that house.”

“I thought you always believed we would.”

“It was just the occasional doubt. The boy is recovering fast… faster than any of us.”

“He’s young.”

“He’s a de Centeville.”

“Also aCollison.”

“Divine combination.”

“We can’t stay here,” I said.

“You’re going to the Loge. Have you seen it yet? I’ll take you over it.”

“Now?”

“In a little while. Let’s sit here and talk first. Kate, what are we going to do, you and I?”

“I am going to the Loge and I shall return to Paris as soon as everything is normal.”

He laughed.

“How long is Paris going to take to recover, do you think?

There is rioting in the streets now. They are setting fire to some of the buildings there, I hear. How long do you think it is going to take France to recover? “

“Perhaps I should go back to England. I might set up a studio in London.”

“I want you to stay here.”

“Here! In the castle!”

“No … somewhere not too far away. I’ll find a place. I shall be with you … most of the time.”

“You mean I should become your mistress?”

“You could call it that.”

“Isn’t that what it would be called? The answer is no.”

“Why not? I want to keep the boy. I thought of legitimizing him ..

making him my heir. “

“But you have an heir. You have William.”

“You know that he is not mine.”

“He is in the eyes of the law.”

“I don’t accept that sort of law.”

“Unfortunately for you, the rest of the world does.”

“You know how it is with this marriage of mine.”

“You should try to understand the Princesse. You could grow fond other if you made an effort to do so. I know her. I worked on her portrait.

It is surprising how one gets to know people whose portraits one paints. “

“I know this: I don’t want to be with her… to see her … She has foisted that bastard on me. It is the worst thing she could have done to me.”

“See it her way. You understand these sudden impulses. Why should it be accepted that a man may indulge his and it is so dreadful when a woman does?”

“Because of the results when a woman does.”

“There may well be results, which should concern the men.”

“I did concern myself.”

“I know. You sent Nicole to discover what was happening to me and when you knew I was to have a child you set up that elaborate establishment.”

“You see, I cared. I made sure that you had the clients you would need. I satisfied myself that you were in good hands. I did everything I could.”

“Except that which you should never have done in the first place.”

“Are you going to hold that against me all our lives?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you will have to be with me to show me your resentment.”

“I have no help for it at the moment. I know it sounds ungrateful, but in view of everything, you must understand. I would not be here if it were not for the boy.”

“I know. Every time it is the boy.”

“And would you want me here if you did not have to have me to get Kendal?”

“That’s where you are wrong. If there were no child, I should want you just as much. Kate, be sensible. You know I want you … you only.

More than I want the boy, I want you. We could get more boys like Kendal. You did something to me. “

“I am glad there was some retaliation.”

“I feel vital when I am with you.”

“I thought you felt magnificent all the time … as the greatest man the world has ever known.”

“Well, that’s just a natural feeling. There is something special in it when I am with you. I want you and the boy. I would to God my wife would go to sleep one afternoon and never wake up. Then we would be married, Kate. I would convince you then.”

“Don’t dare say such things … in my hearing,” I cried.