‘They’ll be punished when or if they return to barracks,’ Pierre said. He was too exhausted now to think about it. He mounted his horse and spurred her into a fast trot, back along the Versailles road. He’d need to wash and change before reporting what he’d seen to the King. All he really wanted to do was collapse on a sofa in his apartment with Catherine, and let her stroke away the demands of the day.
Back at Versailles, Pierre handed his horse to a groom and hurried inside. Enquiring as to the whereabouts of the King, in case he was expected to report immediately, he was told that the King was in his private rooms and did not wish to be disturbed. That suited Pierre. He climbed the stairs and negotiated the long corridors to his own apartment, and sent a footman to summon Catherine to him. He kicked off his muddied boots, and tore off his shirt, stained with the blood of that rebel leader, before she arrived.
Even so, she was visibly shocked at his appearance.
‘What has happened, dear love?’ she said, her face etched with worry as she stepped towards him.
How much should he tell her? He always wanted to keep the perilous state of affairs from her, keep her as innocent and naive as she’d been when he married her. But this time was different – this was so much more, and sooner or later Catherine would hear of what had happened anyway. Better that she heard it from him. He took a deep breath before answering. ‘There is an uprising taking place in Paris. I got … caught up in it, a little. It’s all right, I am not hurt. Just weary.’ He sat down heavily on the sofa, and she perched on the edge beside him, taking his hand in her smooth, white ones.
She stroked the back of his hand. ‘My poor, brave husband,’ she said, and a tear rolled gently down her cheek. She had never looked more lovely. If only they could capture this moment and stay in it for ever. But what he’d seen that day made him fear for their future. The people were rising up, against the natural order, against the rich and powerful. The aristocracy may have the power now, but the ordinary people were by far the more numerous, and if they worked together, they would change the natural order. The ancien régime would not last much longer.
As he regarded his wife’s sweet, innocent face, he wondered how much of his fears he should share with her. She needed to be aware – if he was right then their days living in luxury at Versailles would be numbered. They should start making plans to go to his château in the mountains. His father had died the previous year, and although the estate was well managed Pierre knew he should visit it again soon. Perhaps he should also tell Catherine of his chest pains. Or maybe not until he’d had chance to consult with a physician. He opened his mouth to speak, but she got there first.
‘Dearest Pierre. There is something we must speak about. Our lives are about to change forever.’ She had an endearing coy smile on her face.
‘You’re right, I believe they are,’ he replied. If she’d understood what was happening in Paris too, that would make it easier to suggest they leave Versailles soon.
She snuggled up to him, snaking her arm around his chest. ‘My darling, you are to become a father.’
He jumped up, startled by her words. He’d been so deep in thought about the people’s uprising he hadn’t for a moment thought that she might have meant something else by her statement that their lives were about to change. ‘Oh, Catherine …’ was all he managed to say. In the corner, the maid Claudette was sitting with some needlework. As he caught her eye she smiled shyly before looking away. Catherine had clearly already confided in her.
‘What is it? Are you not happy? We have been married for some years already, and I was beginning to lose hope … surely this is marvellous news? Of course, we will need to reconsider our place at court, but it is not impossible for us to stay …’
‘It is … marvellous news, as you say …’ Pierre knew he should react with happiness, take her in his arms, kiss her and share her joy at the news, but he couldn’t. Not just yet. He needed to think … Would they be better off leaving court now, travelling south as soon as possible? Or should they hold on, and see what happened? It would undoubtedly be safer for Catherine to give birth here at Versailles, with the best physicians in attendance. Safer for the birth, that is. But could he guarantee their safety from the mob? Surely … surely the people wouldn’t come out to Versailles. Surely all here would be safe? He looked around at their opulent apartment, their fine furniture, clothes, decor. What he’d seen today in Paris, outside the Bastille, didn’t seem real any more. This was real – this life, here in comfort, with Catherine. There’d be reforms to placate the people – surely even the King would understand that now. Maybe he’d reinstate Necker. Pierre made his decision and turned back to Catherine with a smile.
‘My dear, I am so happy for us. I am sorry – I was distracted. We will of course stay here at court, where we are comfortable and where you can have the best medical attention possible. I am delighted you are with child. Truly delighted.’ He crossed the room and sat down beside her once more, ignoring the pain that once more tightened around his heart, taking her in his arms, inhaling her fragrance as he kissed her soft neck. An image of that hideous head on a pike came unbidden into his mind but he pushed it away. He would not tell her of that. Nor about his fears for his own health. Nothing must worry her, not now that at long last she was carrying his child.
Chapter 7
Lu
It was mid-afternoon on the day after we arrived at the château when the removal vans arrived – both ours and Steve and Manda’s within an hour of each other. By then we’d unloaded Gray’s hired van, Gray and Steve taking the heavy items in while Manda and I carried boxes in. It was hard work, but fun as we went back and forth to the van. We’d sent Phil into the kitchen, unpacking boxes rather than lifting heavy items.
But when our own stuff arrived it was a different story. Phil insisted on helping with the shifting of furniture. He didn’t go so far as to carry it in from the van and up the stairs, but once the removal men had deposited a piece of furniture in a room Phil was there shifting it into position, sometimes by himself, sometimes with Gray’s help.
‘Phil, darling, I don’t think you should be doing that heavy lifting,’ I said, as he and Gray man-handled a large sofa into a space along one wall.
‘I’m all right,’ he said, or rather, he grunted, with the effort of moving the sofa. And he glared at me, a look that I knew meant, shut up, we’ll talk about this later in private.
I tried to get to each piece that needed moving before Phil did, to either move it myself or ask the men from the van to do it, but it was all a bit of a rush. The removal men seemed to want to dump all the furniture in approximately the right rooms as fast as possible and then get on their way. I knew they’d had a long journey and had to drive back – a couple of days each way – but we were paying them well and it wasn’t too much to expect them to place furniture and boxes where we actually wanted them.
‘What are you doing?’ I yelled, as I spotted Phil carrying a heavy box upstairs, puffing and panting. He’d had a heart attack just a few months before – he shouldn’t have been doing this sort of thing.
‘It’s books, but it’s the ones I want in our bedroom,’ he said, as he struggled on.
‘Here, let me take it,’ I said, coming up beside him to take the box from him. It was as heavy as it looked, and it was all I could manage to carry it up the rest of the stairs to our room. I put it in a corner by the bookcase and turned to Phil who’d followed me up anyway. ‘You go and sit down on that sofa you and Gray were heaving about. I’ll come down and make you a cup of tea. Leave the rest of the unloading to the men.’
‘Lu, it’s all right. I’m fine. And I want to be involved.’
‘But you shouldn’t. In your condition—’
‘I’m fed up of my condition, as you put it.’ He made air quotes around the words with his fingers. ‘The heart attack was months ago. I’ve been perfectly all right for the last seven, eight weeks. Look at me, I’m as capable of moving furnitu
re as Steve or Gray.’
It’s true he was already looking slimmer and healthier than he had for years, but still – he’d had that heart attack. He’d had stents put in. He was on medication. Immediately after the operation he’d been told not to do anything that would put a strain on his heart – and surely carrying a heavy box of books up a set of stairs counted as straining your heart?
‘Love, I am only trying to take care of you,’ I said. I hated it when we had cross words. It didn’t happen often. We had a strong, happy marriage and had very rarely rowed. But since his heart attack, Phil seemed to get irritated with me on occasion. Like now, when he just threw up his hands, shook his head, and walked away from me.
I followed him downstairs to make that cup of tea I’d promised, but he didn’t go to sit on the sofa as I’d suggested. He went out to the removal van, hefted one of the remaining boxes into his arms, and carried it inside.
‘It only contains cushions,’ he said as he passed me, before I could object. ‘Light as a feather.’
There wasn’t much I could say to that. Well, if he stuck to the lighter boxes, he’d be all right. I kept an eye on him during the rest of the unloading period, earning myself a few winks and smiles from him as he passed me, carrying bags of duvets, a box labelled ‘coats and hats’, a small rolled-up rug. As soon as the van was empty, the men had drunk a cup of tea and been tipped, they were off, with a couple of hours’ drive to the hotel where they were booked in for the night.
I went inside and was relieved to see Phil sitting on a sofa, his feet up on an unpacked box.
‘Good job, well done,’ said Steve, passing him and me a cup of tea each. ‘Just a lot of unpacking and sorting out to do.’
‘I’ll get started on our stuff in a minute,’ Phil said. ‘Need to get some of these boxes unpacked to make space to live in!’ He kicked the one his feet were resting on, which was labelled Books and DVDs.
‘No, Phil, you take a rest,’ I said. ‘You’ve done enough today. I can unpack the boxes in here.’
He gave me a look. A look that told me once again to shut up and stop fussing. Steve caught the look, glanced from me to Phil and back again, and then discreetly left the room, muttering something about sorting out something in the kitchen.
‘Lu, just stop fussing, will you? I’m not an invalid. I’m not your mother.’ Phil stood up and walked out with his tea, to the patio where Gray and Manda were arranging the outdoor furniture we’d brought.
I shrugged to myself. I was only trying to help. It was a spouse’s job, wasn’t it, to care for your partner and make sure they didn’t do anything to harm themselves? That was all I was trying to do. We should have had fun today, as our stuff arrived. But instead I’d irritated him once again. I hoped this wasn’t going to set the tone for our new life. I blinked back a tear and went to help Steve in the kitchen, where he was ripping open boxes of kitchen equipment and trying to find homes for everything.
By evening we had furniture scattered throughout the château and what looked like a thousand half-emptied cardboard boxes. Three households merging into one. Soon we found out that we had three kettles but no toaster, ten fish slices and no can opener. The château was a hive of activity as we all began organising the kitchen first – as Steve pointed out, the sooner that was up and running the sooner we’d be able to cook full meals.
Phil and I had made up, thankfully. We’d both been in our room, silently unpacking boxes on opposite sides of the room, when he’d stopped, come over to me and put his arms around me without saying anything. I leaned into him, tucking my face into the crook of his neck, and knew he was both apologising and letting me know he understood and that I was forgiven. Words aren’t always necessary after thirty years of marriage.
It felt odd, looking around the rooms at our own furniture arranged in the château. Once again it made it all seem real – this was not a holiday home; we had actually moved in, and were here for good, for better or worse.
We had a late dinner (cooked by Steve today) by which time we had the kitchen and our own bedrooms more-or-less organised. There were still piles of boxes in the sitting room, and a stack of mismatched bookcases that needed to be constructed and filled. I was dreading the rest of them finding out that at least fifteen of the boxes were filled with my books that I’d been unable to part with. I had a bit of a reputation among them for hoarding books. Mum had been the same. I remembered her sitting room, which had one long wall completely covered with bookcases jam-packed with paperbacks. I used to spend ages in there, browsing her shelves, picking out books to read a few pages and then discovering with shock I’d read a hundred pages and had been in there for hours.
Ah, Mum. I missed her so much, still. While her last few years had been difficult as I took on more and more of her care, I still missed that sunny smile she’d always had for me, even when she was totally bed-bound. I missed her unconditional love, her gratitude for every little thing I did for her, her boundless optimism that however we might feel at any given moment, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Getting over her death had been a wrench for me. I knew that many people, my best friends and husband included, privately considered that her death was actually a relief, that she was never going to improve and her continued existence was making my life hard. But I never truly resented a moment that I spent with Mum. She’d done so much for me throughout her life – caring for her at the end was my way of repaying her, just a little. She’d never complained, not once. She’d smile and reach out her hand to me, and apologise that she couldn’t do more for herself. She’d try so hard – she’d take the hairbrush from me and try to brush her own hair; she’d undo the buttons of her nightie ready for me to change and wash her; she’d carefully stack her used cup on top of her breakfast plate on her bedside table to make it easier for me to clear up. If I had any small sewing job that needed doing, she’d offer to do it for me. ‘I can still see well enough, and my hands are steady enough to sew,’ she’d say, and I’d go round the house looking for small things to mend, buttons to sew on, little tears to repair. She’d do a good job, despite her illness and disabilities, and her smile of pride at her work, at being useful, was beautiful.
I missed her so much. I missed the work, caring for her. I missed her company, her smiles, her presence. It was true I had more time for myself since she’d gone, and fewer demands on me, and life was less stressful – at least up until Phil’s heart attack. But I’d take any amount of demands and stress to have her back with me again. The others didn’t seem to understand this. I was the only one who’d become a carer of an elderly parent, the only one of us who’d given up time and money to do this.
And the only one who’d then had to care for a spouse through a serious illness. I just hoped we were through the worst now and could relax as we got used to our new lifestyle in France. If indeed I would ever get used to it. Every now and again I felt a wave of panic that I’d never feel at home here, never truly fit in with the local community.
We were back in the bistro a week after moving in, celebrating the end of our first week in the château. Monsieur Christophe greeted us like old friends, kissed each of us on both cheeks (‘that’s ten kisses!’ Phil whispered in my ear) and opened a bottle of red wine on the house for us, before we’d even sat down.
It was a lively meal, as we were all in high spirits, talking about the things we’d done already, the things we were going to do, what the summer would be like, what the following winter would be like, our plans for the coming weeks.
‘I want to visit some of those cute little hilltop villages,’ Manda said. ‘There are loads in this area. I was reading up on them. Cassos, Gourdon, Tourrettes-sur-Loup …’
‘The Loup river? Oh, there’s a fantastic gorge on the Loup, and a bike ride up through it. I’ve got that on my list too,’ Gray said. ‘Lu, there’s some fab walking around there as well. Especially from Gourdon which is quite high up. I went there on a holiday about ten years
ago. Stayed in Tourrettes. They grow lots of violets in that area.’
‘Violets?’ Phil frowned.
‘For perfume, and for flavouring sweets.’
Phil’s eyes lit up. He was partial to sweets of any kind, and violet flavour was not something he’d ever tasted, as far as I knew. ‘Well, we’ll have to take a trip to that valley sometime soon, eh?’
‘Definitely. I’ll drink to that.’ Steve raised his glass and we all clinked ours against it.
‘You are ’aving a good time?’ Monsieur Christophe asked, as he brought our desserts (crème brûlée for Gray and Steve, chocolate mousse for Manda and me, and sadly nothing for dieting Phil).
‘We certainly are!’ We all grinned.
‘You ’ave met Madame la Maire?’
‘Er, not yet,’ I admitted. I remembered he’d suggested we go to see the mayor as soon as possible, but it had slipped my mind. And probably everyone else’s too.
Monsieur Christophe tutted. ‘You must. You must all go to see ’er. She ees quite, ’ow you say, formidable. She was ’ere last night. She ask me, ’ad I met the Eenglish from le château yet, and I say I ’ave, and she make a face, like thees.’ He turned down the corners of his mouth. It was comical but we dared not laugh, realising we were being told off.
‘Let’s go tomorrow?’ I said, looking at everyone.
‘Hmm, can’t, got the chap coming about the electrics,’ Steve said. We’d had a few problems – lights flickering, fuses blowing, and wanted someone to check all the wiring, tell us what we should get done and what we must get done, and quote us. We weren’t prepared to accept the explanation that it was a resident ghost. Not quite yet.
The Secret of the Chateau Page 7
