The French Bride (16 page)

The chambermaid curtsied without saying a word and slipped out. The next moment Anne had forgotten her completely. She tore the note into pieces and threw them away.

‘Madame,' Marie-Jeanne said anxiously. ‘Madame, you look so pale. Is it bad news?'

Anne looked into the worried face of the girl who had attended her for so many years; it was almost the first time she had noticed her as a human being. Kind, conscientious Marie-Jeanne was actually fond of her mistress. There was not one other person near her whom Anne could trust.

‘I am forbidden to see Captain O'Neil,' she said. ‘Monsieur threatens to have him killed if I so much as write to him. Marie-Jeanne, I owe the captain money – I can't abandon him like this!'

‘I can find him for you, madame,' the little maid said. ‘I can carry messages between you, if you like. I'm not afraid of Monsieur.' It was such a pity, she thought, in agreement with the other servants, that Madame and the captain were not lovers. Such a pity that the sinister husband who treated her so badly was not getting the cuckolding he deserved. Everyone liked the captain; he was exacting but he was fair, and everyone with eyes in their heads could see that he was passionately in love with Madame.

‘I will do anything you ask, if it will help you and the captain,' she said. ‘You can trust me.'

‘I know I can,' Anne said. ‘I'm very grateful to you. You're a good girl, Marie-Jeanne. I also know you locked the doors last night.'

‘Yes, I did. I told you,' she said stoutly. ‘I'm not afraid of him. Besides, he must be very jealous of you to care about the captain. All my friends among the maids at Versailles told me that their ladies' husbands were completely indifferent to them and allowed them to do as they liked. It is strange that Monsieur should be so strict with you.'

‘Yes,' Anne said slowly. ‘Yes, it is strange. But Monsieur is a harsh man where honour is concerned. He is not French.'

Marie-Jeanne nodded; she was a simple girl and her mind worked in simple ways.

‘If it were not Monsieur,' she said, ‘one would have said he was jealous because he was in love with you himself. But alas, madame, it can't be so. Shall I prepare your bath?'

For the rest of the morning she puzzled over the change of mood in her mistress. In spite of the captain's dismissal and her husband's strictures, Madame seemed curiously happy.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘My dear Louise, he must be madly jealous of her! Rushing to Paris and turning out her lover in the middle of the night!' The Comte de Tallieu leant back and laughed in his high-pitched way.

‘Why,
mon Dieu,
I can't think of a husband at Versailles who couldn't have at least waited till the morning! Whatever possessed you to draw his attention to it?'

‘I don't know why I confide in you,' Louise snapped at him. ‘You're so malicious! Why do you say Charles is jealous – I told you she means nothing to him; he was only furious because he felt he was being laughed at!'

‘Ha, he and a thousand others! What would happen if every husband took that view?' The comte sat forward and smiled at her. It amused him to see her so angry. And already she knew that what he was saying was the truth. ‘Perhaps you're right – perhaps it was outraged pride that sent him racing off into the night. In any case, I don't see what advantage you've gained from it, except to deprive his wife of her lover. She'll only replace him.'

‘I thought he'd catch them together,' Louise admitted. She regretted bitterly the impulse which made her tell De Tallieu what had happened. It was extraordinary why she trusted him when she knew he was not to be trusted. They had little in common except their dislike of Charles's wife, and the comte's pathological spite towards O'Neil, who had threatened to teach him manners. He had never forgotten the incident and he often referred to it. If he could injure O'Neil or harm the woman he loved, then De Tallieu was prepared to give Louise or any other enemy the full benefit of his remarkable intelligence.

‘And obviously he hasn't, otherwise he'd have killed that upstart. What do you suggest now?'

‘Why should I suggest anything?' Louise demanded. She was walking up and down, twisting the ribbons of her dress in and out of her fingers. Charles was jealous of Anne. She could cheerfully have murdered De Tallieu for putting her most secret fear into words. Jealous. He couldn't be jealous of Anne without having some feeling for her.… She felt as if her aching head would burst. ‘Why should I suggest anything?' she repeated. ‘Things between us have never been happier.'

This was true on the surface; Charles had returned to her as usual, offering no apology for that nightmare walk in which she had crept up the back entrance to the palace, carrying her torn shoes in her hand, and luckily had seen no one who recognised her. She had not mentioned it, though in a strange way it rankled more than any of the many cruel and hurtful things that he had done to her. They were still lovers as much as before, but he had told her nothing of what had happened when he went after Anne and the Irishman. The story had come back to her from the spy she had placed in the Hôtel de Bernard, and thanks to her own tongue and the servants' gossip, the story was soon flying round the city and Versailles itself.

‘If all is well between you, why are you pursuing his wife so vigorously?' De Tallieu asked. ‘Come now, my dear Louise, you fill my ears with all these stories, and then, when we come near the truth of the matter, you take refuge in lies.' He stood up, picking up his gold and mother-of-pearl cane. ‘If you can't be honest with me, then I refuse to listen to another word. Besides' – he glanced at her slyly – ‘I don't know why you bring me into this at all.'

‘Because you're a hundred times cleverer than anyone I know, and because you seem to have a little score to settle yourself,' she retorted. ‘Sit down, please. You're a detestable creature and I swear you enjoy tormenting me. But I need you. Is that reason enough?'

‘Admirably honest even if it is unflattering.' The comte sat back again. ‘I am an unpleasant person because nature made me so,' he said sweetly. ‘Also, I dislike my fellow men and I enjoy their misfortunes. It's almost my only amusement in life. You are a wicked bitch, my dear, and far more wicked since you fell in love with your lover. I always thought the tender feeling was supposed to soften and improve.…' He giggled, his eyes as bright as a snake's. ‘You're not sure of him, are you? Isn't that the truth? You're not so sure that this convenient marriage means nothing to him.… You want to be rid of the woman by some means or another, so that you can devour M. Charles, like those charming female spiders.'

‘I am going to say something to you which may surprise you,' Louise said quietly. ‘I don't want to
devour
Charles as you put it. I love him. I would do anything in the world for him. But as I am only his mistress, I am at a disadvantage. I have nothing to offer him but myself. She, on the other hand, has a great deal as time goes on. She has beauty – I'm not as blind with malice as you think.' She smiled bitterly. ‘She has wealth – she is his wife, and she is here. If she had never followed him, I don't believe he would have thought of her from one year's end to the next. But proximity and patience; those are the two things that can take him away from me. And if he leaves me I shall die. I'm sure you find this very funny!'

‘I find it astonishing,' he remarked. ‘The intensity of passion you people inspire in one another – whereas I, with my little pages … I have all the pleasure and none of the pain. When I have tired of one, I buy another. Poor Louise; stop tearing those exquisite ribbons, you've ruined them. Do you want my advice?'

‘Yes,' she said desperately. ‘What shall I do – how can I get her to leave Versailles and go away, far away, back to her damned château in the country?'

‘I don't see how you can,' he said. ‘At least, not at the moment. I don't see there's anything you can do, because you allowed your jealousy to bungle that affair with the mercenary. You should have consulted me. I'd have arranged that your Charles caught them properly! I'm afraid you must be patient, my dear, and use your wits and talents – whatever they may be – to keep him happy with you. An opportunity will present itself, it always does if one waits.'

‘I shall try,' Louise said. ‘Have you been invited to this ball she's giving?'

The comte's rouged face changed colour a little.

‘No,' he answered, ‘no, I've not been asked. Everyone I know has received an invitation except me. And you, I presume.'

Louise nodded.

‘That's another little debt I owe Mme. Macdonald. She'll find that it was most unwise to leave me out! I must go, Louise. If you hear anything interesting, send me a message.'

‘I will.'

Louise gave him her hand and he made his usual pretence of kissing it. When she was alone, Louise rang for her maid.

‘Marie, come and help me change. I'm riding in the park with M. Macdonald in an hour. Afterwards I want you to send a message to that woman at the Hôtel de Bernard. She's to keep the sharpest watch possible upon her mistress.'

As she spoke, she stepped out of the overdress Marie had unfastened and stood in her petticoats before the mirror on her bedroom wall. She watched as her maid stripped off the long, full skirts and unhooked the small, boned pannier; she stood in her shift and the narrow steel corselet that gripped her waist so tightly that Charles could span it with his hands. The same corselet pushed her breasts high so that they came well above the neck of her dress. She looked at herself critically, anxiously, as she had done so often since she met him.

She was very beautiful; it was not vanity or self-deception to claim that. Her features were arresting, her brilliant eyes and pale skin were matched by the shining blackness of her abundant hair. Her body was as smooth and graceful as a young girl's; even so, she could offer him more than the physical beauty that had brought so many men in pursuit of her. Her sensuality was as fierce as any man's and as capable of infinite variations of mood, so that Charles was never bored and never quite knew what to expect. She could have been a king's mistress, and she knew it. And yet every instinct quivered with anxiety when she though of Anne Macdonald, and all her logical arguments and Charles's contemptuous rebuttals could not make that sense of uneasiness quiescent. The wife was a danger to her; she could not really say why or how, but she knew it was so. One day, he would go to his wife and stay, and she would have lost him forever. When that day came, as she told the comte, she would not want to live.

Dressed at last in her blue cloth riding habit, with a hat covered in emerald-green ostrich feathers, she examined herself once more and could find no fault. Carefully she composed her face, forcing away the lines between her eyebrows, turning her red mouth up into a smile. That must be her face when she was with him. At the door she turned again to Marie.

‘Don't forget that message. The strictest watch! I have a feeling something's going to happen!'

It was only three days before the ball, and Anne was so busy that she stayed on at the hôtel supervising the preparations. The King had expressed his intention of honouring Mme. Macdonald by coming to her ball; it was unthinkable that the monarch should be directly invited by a subject. Mme. Du Barry would be coming with him, and the list ran on through dukes and princes of the blood, even including the dauphin and Marie Antoinette herself who rarely went to anything not given by a personal friend.

Everyone's curiosity was aroused; older people spoke of the magnificent parties given by Anne's mother, the marquise, who had delighted to appear at them in fancy dress, glittering from head to foot with diamonds and escorted by her latest lover. If the De Bernard hospitality was being offered on that scale, life in Paris and at court would be all the more amusing.

The great rooms were ready at last, and a dozen chefs and twice that number of assistants were busy in the huge kitchens, baking and roasting and decorating tons of food for the supper, while more still were in the cellars, perfecting cordials and fruit drinks. When the cellar was opened up there were enough fine wines to satisfy the most exacting guests, and Anne engaged a group of Italian musicians who were touring France at the time.

The reception would begin with supper, followed by a ball; there were rooms set aside for gaming; the dauphine was notorious for sitting at the gaming table until dawn; the great salon had been turned into a ballroom with a special dais for the orchestra, and another, with throne and canopy, where His Majesty could sit if he wished and watch the dancers.

The rooms were banked with masses of flowers; Anne's steward had cleared the Parisian markets, and upstairs her bedroom and boudoir were full of boxes, ribbons, wrappings, and paper. Rows of wigs of various height dressed in different styles were put out on stands in her powder closet. A big walnut cabinet the size of a small chest stood in her bedroom; there were three sets of drawers above a deep, fitted interior and it contained Anne's famous collection of jewels. The day before the ball had been spent having last fittings of her dress, consulting the wigmaker about which style suited her best, and submitting to the tyranny of Marie-Jeanne who was determined that her mistress should outshine even the dauphine herself at the ball.

To Anne's delight her sister-in-law, Jean, Comtesse de Mallot, had arrived in Paris and was staying at her brother-in-law's hôtel in the city, accompanied by her husband. On this occasion she had left her brood of children with their nurses in the country. In her letter of acceptance she told Anne that by some miracle she was not pregnant and was about to order the most expensive dress in Paris. They had not seen each other since the wedding at Charantaise, and knowing how Charles disliked his sister, Anne had not mentioned her.