The French Bride (25 page)

‘No one knows you are here … no one will ever know.' The governor's words hummed through her head all through that first nightmare when she lay prone and trembling like an animal in a trap. ‘No one will ever know.' Now her hope grew; she had relations, an uncle in Charantaise who was expecting her, she was rich and important and well known. She could not simply disappear like some poor waif of the Paris streets.… There would be questions, enquiries, a scandal. There must be all those things at this very moment, because she had not returned to her hôtel.… She got up and smoothed the stained and crumpled dress and went to the door and knocked. After a long time, in which she scraped her knuckles on the wood, the foul old man turned the lock and drew back the outside bolts.

‘What do you want?' he said.

‘Something to eat,' Anne said gently. ‘And some means of washing myself. I have nothing but the clothes I'm wearing.'

‘Can you pay?' the old man demanded.

‘You know everything was taken from me,' she answered. There was no use in abusing the creature or making demands. She would not be there for very long. ‘I beg you,' she went on. ‘See what you can do to help me. I shan't forget you when I am released.'

For a moment the turnkey was tempted to laugh in her face and slam the door, but he paused. She was dishevelled and, in spite of the calm words, her voice was trembling; she was nearer hysteria than she knew, but he knew it from long experience. And she was a pleasant one, this prisoner; she bore him no resentment, hadn't even yelled and screamed and disturbed his rest the previous night as so many of them did. He was old and his duties tired him out; if a prisoner robbed him of his sleep, he bore him a long, silent grudge.

‘Eh,' he said, ‘so you'll remember me when you're released.… There's food over there, I left it with you; what's wrong with that?'

‘It is stale and cold,' Anne said. She was unaware of it but she had begun to cry; the tears were running steadily down her face.

‘Give it here,' he grumbled. ‘I'll heat it for you. There's no more till this evening; one issue a day and short at that for the first month; after that, things may improve for you. If you're good and I speak well of you! Washing water and clothes are impossible.' He took the bowl of greasy soup and backed out through the low door. ‘After a month,' he repeated. By his own lights he had been very kind. When he came back his prisoner was sitting on her heap of straw, still crying as if she would never stop, and yet without the noise which so offended him and made the other prisoners in adjoining cells so restless. One was a woman who had been there for ten years; she was the discarded mistress of a minister whom she had later tried to blackmail. She was quite mad by now and sat in her cell humming and sewing bits of cloth which the fortress doctor had allowed her. Other sounds set her off and she had once yelled through the door for a whole day until the turnkey came in and chained her to the wall until she stopped.

‘Here's the soup. I'll bring some more tonight before the light goes.'

She took it from him and her shaking hands spilled some of it. She was very young, the old man thought, somewhere in the twenties, and she must be very pretty in the normal way. Long years ago when he was young, a pretty woman could make life almost comfortable by being nice to him from time to time. He was too old for anything now but food and sleep and a little warmth.

‘They can't keep me here,' Anne whispered. ‘Its impossible. I've never offended the King … it's a mistake, a mad mistake, meant for someone else. You know they can't keep me here! Don't you know who I am!'

‘Now, now!' The turnkey snapped at her suddenly. ‘You heard the governor. I don't remember the name he gave you then, but I know your number and that's all I'll ever know. Don't tell me who you are, 713, I'm not supposed to know. It's forbidden, d'you hear? The penalty for saying it is right above your head!'

He pulled the door behind him and she heard the grind of bolts and the creak of the key. She looked above her, and saw iron rings stapled into the wall and two wrist irons hanging from them. She edged very slowly along the straw until she could not see them any more, and with the same quivering care she tried to drink the soup. The first mouthful turned her stomach and she sank back, sick and almost fainting. Until that moment, Anne had quite forgotten she was carrying a child.

‘Jean, thank God you've come!' Katherine opened her arms to her daughter. Sir James and the old Comte de Bernard were in the library at Charantaise; they had been there for a week, summoned urgently by Katherine after her arrival and they had been waiting for Jean to join them.

‘I came at once, the moment I got your letter,' Jean said.

‘There is no word of Anne,' her father said. ‘I started enquiries in Paris as soon as your mother let me know she was not here. No one has seen or heard of her since she left the De Louvriers three weeks ago!'

‘I've been demented with worry,' Katherine said. ‘In God's name, Jean, where is she?'

Jean took off her gloves and unloosened the strings of her cloak. She looked round her at the anxious faces and, to their astonishment, she smiled. ‘You mean it hasn't occurred to any of you where she is?' she asked.

‘No, child, for the love of God why should it? She has simply disappeared!' Sir James almost shouted at her. ‘If you know something, why didn't you let us know?'

‘I thought you'd guess,' his daughter answered. ‘I'm sorry, Papa and Mama, and you, poor Cousin de Bernard. I'm afraid this is all my fault. That's why I came at once, to explain and put your minds at ease. You remember the night of that ball, you remember how we all sat round the poor girl planning to relieve her of my odious brother? I gave her a piece of advice that night. I think you'll find she's taken it, that's all.'

‘And the advice you gave?' the old comte asked. His voice shook and he seemed to have aged ten years since his niece had disappeared.

Jean came and put her arms around him.

‘I told Anne to go to Metz,' she said. ‘I told her to go to Captain O'Neil and forget that she had ever seen my brother. I am certain that is where she is now. And I'm glad! Did you question her maid, Marie-Jeanne – did you think of suggesting it?'

‘How could we?' her mother said. ‘It never occurred to us.'

‘Is it likely,' the old comte asked them. ‘would she run off with the man like that, without a word …?'

‘Send for the girl,' Sir James said. ‘Question her again.'

‘Now,' Katherine spoke calmly to Marie-Jeanne, ‘now, you are not to be afraid, no one is blaming you; you did everything you thought right when you came to me and said Madame had vanished.… Think carefully and keep nothing back.'

The maid shook her head, ‘Madame, I swear I've told you everything. Something has happened to her!' She put her hands to her mouth and began to cry.

‘Did the marquise ever mention Captain O'Neil to you before she went out that night?' Sir James said. ‘Think, girl, and control yourself. Did she ever mention going away to Metz?'

Marie-Jeanne wiped her eyes on her sleeve and nodded. ‘Yes, monsieur, she did. I asked her if she had forgotten the captain. Forgive me, I knew how much he loved Madame, everyone in the hôtel knew it.…'

‘And what did she say?' Jean stepped close to her. ‘Think back, what was her answer?'

‘She told me to mind my own business,' the girl whispered. ‘She said she hadn't forgotten him; she said if she were going there, it was no place for me.…'

‘You see!' Jean turned in triumph to her parents. ‘Exactly as I said! She must have made a rendezvous with O'Neil and gone straight on with him, instead of going back to Paris.… If I had any doubt, it was because she hadn't taken the girl with her. Now that's explained. There's no need to look any further.'

‘Oh, thank God!'

Jean had never seen her mother lose the iron control that kept her always in command of herself and the situation. Now Katherine sank into a chair as if she were exhausted. ‘I've had such nightmares … I had begun to imagine she'd been kidnapped, murdered.… And all the time she is at Metz!'

‘Yes,' Jean said quietly, ‘she is; and at this moment she's probably happy for the first time since you married her to my brother. If you have any love for her, or any conscience for that marriage, you'll leave them alone.'

‘A lover,' the old comte said. ‘I never though of that, I never dreamed.…'

‘How much patience did you think she had?' Jean demanded. ‘What did you think she'd do – come back here and live out the rest of her life alone? Mama, you told her yourself often enough to look elsewhere and let Charles go to the devil; we all let her know she had our full approval. She took my advice, that's all. As I said, I only hope you'll leave her and the O'Neil in peace; let them work out their own way.'

‘But the scandal,' Anne's uncle objected. ‘To go and join a serving soldier, a common mercenary. I can't believe it! I don't think the child would ever lower herself like that.

‘You're an old man, my dear Pierre,' Katherine said gently. ‘You're thinking of Anne as if she were a child still, not a woman who's been married to my son for a whole year! Jean's right. I was mad not to think of it immediately. She is at Metz; of course she is!'

‘And I think we might all take her advice to her maid,' Sir James said at last. ‘I think it's time we began minding our own business. When she needs us, Anne will send word.' He turned to the maid ‘There's no need to fret about your mistress; we're satisfied that she's quite safe.'

‘But her clothes, monsieur, her jewels … she took nothing with her.…'

‘She'll send for them soon, you'll see,' Jean said. ‘You can go now. Put the servants' minds at rest and try to stop them gossiping. There's nothing to worry about. You know the captain; Madame is in good hands.'

‘The story will come out,' Sir James said. ‘I've approached too many people, trying to find her.…'

‘She has gone away to rest,' his wife interrupted. ‘That will be enough. When we drop the matter, everyone else will forget it.'

And everyone did, just as she had said they would. There was a little gossip at Versailles when the Macdonalds returned and gave their explanation, and the same conclusion was reached by others as had at once occurred to Jean de Mallot. The marquise had got rid of her husband and, as soon as he had left the country, she'd gone off to join her lover. The enquiries were dropped; the great hôtel was barred and shuttered, and Charantaise remained without a mistress, occupied only by the old comte who withdrew more into himself than usual without his niece to keep him company.

The weeks passed into months; the very name of Anne Macdonald was forgotten in the excitement of the bitter struggle for power between Mme. du Barry and her faction, and the King's new favourite, who was still at Versailles, and whom no one but a chosen few had ever seen.

Only one person remained in doubt and it was a doubt that grew as the time slipped away, and she went to the clothes cupboard and saw her mistress' dresses hanging unclaimed and her jewels still in their casket, and no word came.

Marie-Jeanne went about her duties and was silent; there was no one to listen to her fears. At the end of three long months she was convinced of one thing, and all her peasant obstinacy fastened on it and refused to be shaken. Her mistress had not gone to Metz.

It was the middle of November when she went to the comte with an excuse that one of the marquise's Paris staff was sick and had written, begging her to come. They were close friends, she said – if he would just permit her to go to the city for a week and comfort her. The next morning she set off on foot for the nearest posting station and began the long, jolting journey in the crowded coach with her savings hidden in a purse round her neck. She did not know what she was going to do in Paris or to whom she could go with her suspicions, but the secret of her mistress' disappearance would never be found at Charantaise. The key to it was in the city, somewhere on the road Anne had taken that night, never to be seen again, but first she had to satisfy herself that she was right and the chevalier and his wife and the comtesse and all the great ones were mistaken. At Paris she spent the night in a wretched inn, afraid to sleep for fear of being robbed, and the next morning Marie-Jeanne, who had never left Charantaise till she went with her mistress to Versailles, set out for the Royal Army Headquarters at Metz.

‘I've missed you so much,' Louise whispered.

She put her arms round Charles and drew him down and kissed him with an avidity that was surprising since they had made love to each other for most of the night. He took hold of her clinging hands and pulled them off; he felt suddenly as if they were creepers entwining around him, fastening tighter and tighter until he suffocated.

He had been back at Versailles for two days and Louise had followed him like a shadow, impervious to snubs and mockery, driven by more than sexual hunger though this was hot and fierce as fire. He had returned, and she pursued him desperately, refusing to admit that he had changed in those three weary months while she waited without a letter from him or a word of news. He was oddly impatient as if he were already bored after the few days at Versailles. When he spoke, his speech was full of names and words she did not understand, barbaric places in his desolate country laid waste by wars, but they were real to him now as they had never been before. She had lost him a little and she knew it, and what she wanted from him most of all was something he would never give her, a tender word, a whisper that he loved her. He moved away from her and lay on his back. He was tired and irritable; he did not want to lie and sleep beside her as they used to do.