As for myself I could think of nothing but my father. When I had seen him he had seemed happy-content with his marriage to Clare, happy because I was successful and he thought Kendal vas going to paint too. And all the time he had been keeping his thoughts to himself.
If only he had shared them!
There were times when I was on the point of making arrangements to return to England.
What was the use? said Nicole. What could I do? He was dead and buried. There was nothing I could do. Besides, how could I leave the boy?
How could I indeed. I thought of the Baron, prowling round. What would happen if I were not here?
“Moreover,” went on Nicole, ‘it is not easy to travel in wartime. Stay where you are. Wait awhile. You will get over the shock of it. Let Clare come here. You can talk together and comfort each other. “
It seemed sound advice.
Then things began to change. The spirit of optimism had given way to one of apprehension. The war was not going as well as it had seemed to at first. Saarbriicken was nothing more than a skirmish at which the French had had their only success.
Gloom began to show itself in the streets of Paris. A mercurial people once applauding victory with enthusiasm were now sunk in gloom and asking each other, What next?
The Emperor was with the army; the Empress had taken up residence in Paris as Regent; and that first belief that it would soon be over and the Prussians taught a lesson began to fade. The French army was not what it had been thought to be. On the other hand the Prussians were disciplined, well ordered and determined on victory.
Everyone was talking about the war. It was a momentary setback, said some. It was not possible that a great country like France could be humiliated by little Prussia.
Even when sittings began to be cancelled and some of my clients were leaving Paris for the country, I went on thinking of my father and imagining what his thoughts must have been when he made his final and fateful decision. It was not until I heard that the Prussians were closing in on Metz and that the Emperor’s army was in disorderly retreat blocking the roads and stopping the movement of supplies to the front, that I began to see that we were facing real disaster.
Then came the news of the dire calamity at Sedan and that the Emperor, with eighty thousand French troops, was a prisoner of war in the hands of the Prussians.
“What now?” asked Nicole.
“What can we do but wait and see?” I asked.
There was fury in the streets. Those who had been proclaiming the Emperor and crying A Berlin were now fuming against him.
The Empress had fled to England.
September had come. Who would have believed that there could be such changes in so short a time.
Those few days seemed endless.
“They’ll make peace,” said Nicole.
“We shall have to agree to conditions. Then everything will settle down to normal.”
Two days after the fall of Sedan the Baron came to see us.
I was coming down to the salon when I heard voices. A visitor, I thought.
I opened the door and gasped with astonishment, for the Baron came swiftly towards me and taking my hand kissed it. I withdrew it quickly and looked reproachfully at Nicole. I had the impression that she had invited him here.
But this was not so and he dispelled that suspicion immediately.
“I came to warn you,” he said.
“You know what is happening.” He did not wait for a comment from us.
“It’s … debacle,” he went on.
“We have allowed a fool to govern France.”
“He did some good,” Nicole defended the Emperor.
“He is just not a soldier.”
“If he is not a soldier he should not go to war. He misled the country into thinking it had an army which could fight. It was unprepared .. untrained … There was not a chance against the Germans. However, we waste time and God knows we have little of it to spare.”
“The Baron is suggesting that we leave Paris,” said Nicole.
“Leave Paris? To go where?”
“He is offering us the shelter of his chateau until we can make our plans.”
I said: “I have no intention of going to Centeville.”
“Do you understand the situation?” he demanded.
“I have been following the news. I know there has been disaster at Sedan and the Emperor taken prisoner.”
“And that does not give you cause for alarm?”
I said: “Nothing would make me come to your castle. I have been there before.”
“The situation is grim, Kate,” said Nicole.
“I know. But I shall stay here. It’s my home now, and if it were impossible to live here I suppose I could go to England.”
“You will not find travelling easy in wartime.”
I looked at him steadily and I could not shut out the memory of him in that turret room with triumph in his eyes and the determination to enforce his will.
“I shall stay here,” I said firmly.
“You’re being foolish. You don’t understand what it means to have an occupying enemy in your country.”
“And what of you? You are in the same country.”
“The Prussians will not come to my chateau.”
“Why not?”
“I shall not allow it.”
“You … you’re going to stand out against the Prussian armies?”
“We’re wasting time,” he said.
“You should prepare to leave at once.”
I looked at Nicole and said: “You go if you want to. I shall stay here.”
“Kate.. it’s not safe.”
“There is a choice of two evils. I choose this one.”
The Baron was regarding me with that quizzical look which I had seen before.
“Go, Nicole,” I said.
“You believe him. I don’t.”
He raised his shoulders in a helpless gesture.
Nicole said: “You know I won’t leave you and Kendal.”
The Baron shrugged his shoulders.
“Then there is nothing more I can do. Adieu, ladies. And may you have better luck than you have good sense.”
With that he was gone.
Nicole sat down and stared in front other.
“You should have gone with him,” I said.
She shook her head.
“No … I’ll stay here. This is my home. You and the boy are my family.”
“But you think I’m wrong.”
She lifted her shoulders rather as he had done a few moments before.
“It remains to be seen,” she said.
Those September days were strangely unreal hazy in the mornings and when the sun rose the city seemed to be touched with a golden light.
There was tension on the streets as the people waited for news.
The whole of Paris was in revolt against the Emperor whom they declared had betrayed them. It seemed such a short while ago that they had cheered him and his beautiful Empress. Now they despised them. It had been the same with the kings, they said. The Bonapartes behaved as though they were kings and Paris had rejected those flamboyant rulers eighty years before.
I caught a glimpse during those days of what it must have been like in paris before the Revolution burst upon the city.
When France declared herself to be a Republic once more, there was excitement in the streets. No more kings. No more emperors. This was the people’s land.
But this could not hold back the German advance, and as September neared its end came the final blow. Strasbourg, one of the last strongholds of the French, capitulated to the Germans, whose armies were now marching on Paris.
Then came the terrifying information. The King of Prussia was actually in the Palace of Versailles.
We had for some time begun to feel the strain. Food was fast disappearing from the shops. Nicole had said we must get together what we could. If we had plenty of flour we could at least make bread. And as long as we could we went on buying.
There came a day which I shall never forget. Nicole went out to see what she could buy and while she was gone the bombardment started.
I heard the explosion and wondered what it was. I thought there must be fighting near the outskirts of the city. I was worried about Kendal. I thought then that I should have listened to the Baron. He was right. We should have left Paris.
There was just that one explosion.
Kendal was in the studio doing his lessons with Jeanne. He was using the studio now as I had had no clients for weeks.
I was thinking that Nicole seemed to have been away a long time when I heard the concierge calling me.
I ran down. A boy was there.
“Madame Collison,” he said, ‘will you come at once to the Hopital St. Jacques. A lady there is asking for you. “
“A… lady?”
“Madame St. Giles … She has been hurt. These cursed Germans ..”
I felt sick with fear. The explosion! They were bombarding Paris and I had to go there as fast as I could, but I thought of Kendal.
I said: “Give me a moment. I must tell them I am leaving.”
I called to Jeanne.
“Madame St. Giles has been hurt,” I said briefly.
“I’m going to the hospital. Take care of Kendal while I’m away.”
Jeanne nodded. I could trust her.
Fortunately the hospital was only a few streets away and within a few minutes I was there.
Nicole almost unrecognizable was lying in a bed. She was wrapped in a white robe and there were bloodstains on it.
I threw myself on to my knees and gazed at her.
She recognized me, but I think only just.
“Kate,” she whispered.
“I’m here, Nicole. I came as soon as I could.”
“They’re bombarding Paris. They’re all round us… I was hurrying home to tell you …”
“Should you talk?”
“I must talk, Kate.”
“No,” I said.
“You shouldn’t. Are you all right here? Is there anything I can do? Are you in pain?”
She shook her head.
“I can’t … feel … much. Something’s happened to me.”
“Oh Nicole!” I said and I was overcome with remorse and shame. She should never have been here. She would have gone away with the Baron but for me.
“Kate …”
“Yes?”
She gave me a crooked smile. There was no colour in her face. She looked dead. apart from her eyes.
“I… I want to tell you …”
“You shouldn’t talk.”
“It’s the end… for me. Strange… Shot in a Paris street. I often wondered what my end would be. Now I know.”
“You should try to sleep.”
She smiled.
“I want you to… understand …”
“I understand, my dear friend, that I could never have got through my troubles but for you.” I felt the tears welling into my eyes.
She blinked. I think she was trying to shake her head.
“Him… Kate.”
“Him?”
“He’s safe in his Norman stronghold,” I said.
“Try Kate … Try to understand. He was the one. It was his house . He wanted to make sure that you were all right…”
What was she trying to tell me?
“Don’t fret,” I said.
“Whatever it was doesn’t matter now.”
“Yes … yes …” she murmured.
“Try to understand him, Kate.
There’s good in him . “
I smiled at her and a certain impatience showed itself in her slurred voice.
“He sent me… to find you, Kate. It wasn’t by chance. He wanted to be sure that you were … looked after.”
“You mean that he knew all the time where I was?”
“It was his house. He looked after everything, Kate … paid for everything … arranged about the birth. He has looked after everything since. He sent the people who came for the portraits. You see… he cared, Kate.”
This was too much. It was one shock following on another. He had watched over me then. He had known where I was all the time. He must have guessed there would be a child. He had sent Nicole to look after me . to feign friendship . Oh no, not that. She had been my true friend. But in the beginning he had sent her. The elegant, comfortable house, with its convenient studio had been provided by him. Nicole had reported to him regularly and in time he had come to see his son in the Gardens.
It was a blinding revelation, but somehow it did not seem important with Nicole lying there . dying. Yes, I knew she was dying. She would never come back to us. That bohemian life others, living in elegant salons as mistress of one of the most powerful men in France had ended in a Paris street and here she was in a hospital for the poor.
“Oh Nicole,” I said.
“Dear Nicole, you must get well. You must come back with us.”
She smiled at me and her eyes were already becoming glazed.
“It’s finished,” she said.
“It’s all over. I’ve been too badly hurt. I know it is the end. I’m glad you came, Kate. I had to speak to you .. before I went. Forgive him. There is good in him. You might find it.”
“Don’t talk of him.”
“I must. I must make you see how it was. I loved him… in my way. He loved me … in his way… the light way. Not as he would love you.
You could put the good in him, Kate. Please try. “
“You shouldn’t be thinking of him, Nicole. Please rest. You’re going to get well. How could we get on without you?”
“You forgive me …”
“What is there to forgive? It is you who should forgive me. I kept you here. I should have made you go with him. You knew that was right… and you wanted to. But I wouldn’t go and because … Oh, Nicole, how can I thank you for all you did for me?”
“He did it;
“No, Nicole, you .. you.”
“Please, Kate.”
She was pleading with me and I knew she was dying.
I nodded my head and saw her expression change. I think then she was at peace.
She closed her eyes. She was breathing with difficulty. I sat on. I fancied my presence comforted her. It must have been half an hour before her breathing changed. She was making rasping noises, trying to get her breath.
I ran out to call someone. I found a nurse and took her to Nicole’s bedside.
Nicole was silent now.
“She was badly hit,” said the nurse.
“She hadn’t a chance.”
Then she closed Nicole’s eyes and put the sheet over her face.
I stumbled out of the hospital. I could not take it in. Nicole dead!
But that morning she had been alive and well. my dearest friend, the one on whom I relied. And now she was gone. and all in an hour or so. Life was harsh, I had reason to know, but that tragedy could come so swiftly had never occurred to me.