That Scoundrel Émile Dubois

by Lucinda Elliot

  Émile – though pale and haggard enough to satisfy even Mrs Brown, could she seen him – had made such good progress since coming out of the fever* following his gunshot wounds that Sophie felt she could soon concentrate on her own internal discomforts.

  For all that, she found time to pray every night for Ceridwen, Kenrick, Mackenzie and Arthur. Georges had disappeared after Dr Powell’s had extracted the shot from Émile. Agnes told Sophie that while Lord Ynyr had started proceedings to arrest Mackenzie, he had apparently vanished. Sophie thought she knew why.

  She was as happy not to know the details as she was not to know those of Ceridwen’s relations with Émile.

  She had merely asked him to forgive the tormented woman. He had pulled a face. ‘I would do much for you, Sophie; that is asking a good deal. Still, I will try.’

  Some things were better left alone. Mackenzie had sometimes behaved as a fiend, but that was not his fault, any more than it had been Émile’s, or even Kenrick’s.

  At the moment, though Sophie felt too sick to dwell on such thoughts. Over the last few days, she had made several hand-to-mouth dashes from Émile’s bedside to the basin she kept for the purpose in the dressing room. Now she felt on the verge of another. It being morning, she was at her sickest. She had been hardly able to touch the mint tea that Agnes brought her and could only respond to Émile’s banter with an uncomfortable smile.

  Just then, Georges came in from the dressing room. Sophie caught a whiff of the cigar he had must have enjoyed earlier. Her stomach heaved; snatching her hand from Émile’s grasp she dashed into his dressing room, beginning to retch even before she gained it.

  Agnes was following her, when Émile stopped her. “I become worried about ma petite, Agnes. Her stomach trouble becomes worse. It is she who should be in bed, being waited upon.”

  “No getting up yet, Monsieur Gilles! I think Mistress Sophie is Well Enough Under the Circumstances.”

  With male obliviousness, he looked puzzled. “You mean all the worry I have given her?”

  “No, although I do not suppose it helps. But she might have Interesting News for you.” Agnes put such a wealth of meaning into her tone and glance that even a male couldn’t fail to understand. As she went into the dressing room to Sophie she saw Émile looking first startled and then gratified.

  He beckoned to Georges. “Is Mackenzie still at large, for I fear for ma femme and the other women?”

  “You ain’t going to like this, Gilles. As you know your cousin as magistrate signed the warrant for his arrest, but he ain’t been seen? I went back to the Kenrick place after him, finding him in the laboratory. Even as I threw my blade, the flashing came in front of him. He disappeared into it and I near did too. There was something different about it from when it pulled us in.”

  Émile swore. “Devil take it, it ain’t over, then. I so wanted to kill him myself for making those threats to the girls. So that force lingers, Georges? This is not happy.”

  “I think there to be nothing there now. I was back a couple of times, in case the old man staying there had seen anything of him, and all was still. I think he’s gone like them others.”

  “I would we had been able to dispatch him, Georges, and that instead of lying like a helpless baby here I could explore any lingering influence there.”

  “I know you will find nothing, so do not annoy us all by rising before you should. I have happy news; Agnes has agreed to marry me. Incredibly, I find that is what I want more than anything.”

  “Georges, I am delighted for you, though she is far better than you deserve.”

  “Even as adorable Madame Sophie is far too good for you. My only criticism of your lovely Madame Dubois is all the praying over us. Why cannot these women leave an honest rogue be? But I have promised Agnes I will reform, so that old – mother of hers will us have Eiluned. And my only complaint about Agnes is she is too superstitious. I would like to set fire to that Tarot set of hers.” Georges dug in his pocket and drew out the shot. “The Doctor dug this out of you. What think you of that?”

  Émile whistled. “I did notice his doing so, Georges. Alors, I deserved to have some of my own blood spilt after my wild lust for that of women.”

  Georges shook his head. “Now I shudder to think on how we slobbered after their necks.”

  Émile looked disgusted too. “What a business, eh, Georges? Life was tame in Paris, Boulogne and Hounslow Heath in comparison. We have been villains enough, and lucky enough to escape Tyburn, let alone stakes in our gizzards. It is high time we made some effort to become respectable citizens – comparatively. Ma pauvre petite! I feel I must spend the rest of my life grovelling to her for the sorrow that I have caused her, and we owe those redoubtable females endless thanks for fighting us so magnificently to make us human again.”

  “For sure we do. Alors, it all worked out for the best, though you and I went to the Kenrick place cursing at losing our vampire strength for the coming fight, let alone Kit. Alors, it seems when Madame is recovered somewhat you will be having a private conversation, so I will withdraw.” Georges made his mocking bow.

  “My pauvre petite.” Émile smiled. “We will not tell the ladies of how Mackenzie disappeared in the hope that matters are truly over.”

  “Especially not Madame Sophie now…I will tell you a secret. I fell down on my knees to Agnes quite as abjectly as you did to Madame, as that is what they like.” Georges gave a patriarchal sigh.

  EPILOGUE

  Dubois Court

  Buckinghamshire

  England

  October 1795

  “What shall we call him, Sophie?”

  Sophie and Émile watched entranced as the baby sucked frantically at her nipple.

  His downy head was very blond – as in that premonition that she had had – a six pound boy.

  They stared in wonder at the way his ten fingers and toes wriggled as he suckled, as overwhelmed by this miracle as if babies hadn’t been doing that since babies began.

  It was amazing how new he was, how completely free of the past, how intensely he lived, oblivious of anything that had gone towards his making, the happenings of Provence, Paris, Plas Uchaf and Plas Planwydden, let alone Plas Cyfeillgar. He was so obviously, reassuringly, toothlessly human, too, for all his father’s having been only half so when his life was started.

  Agnes’ Tarot cards (returned to making accurate predictions after the Kenrick adventure) had reassured Sophie about that as had the Charged Wine and the herbs she had taken, yet she had always had a tiny doubt about this baby’s full humanity until now.

  Émile stroked Sophie’s cheek. “My brave girl made little enough fuss in giving me this prize, so Agnes tells me. I made more. Georges and Mr Kit dosed me with brandy.”

  Sophie had given her word about the baby’s name. As Georges would have said, ‘Honour is Honour’. She answered Émile’s query about the name stoutly. “Bernard or Armand, as we agreed for the first boy.” She didn’t like either name.

  She was not all that fond of the name Marguerite either, for the first girl, though she liked the name Charlotte. She knew a girl would be next. Agnes said so (just as she said that this baby and her own coming baby would be boys) and once again her Tarot set was Never Wrong.

  At the moment, though, Sophie felt too battered to dwell on what went towards making another baby.

  Émile went over to the windows, which gave a view over the sunlit carriage entrance of Dubois Court. Out there, Katarina (now a sort of adopted younger sister for them both) was playing with Eiluned and some of the kitchen kittens.

  Outside Sophie’s bedroom door, Agnes was telling Georges about the wonders of the new arrival. Sophie hoped she was praising Mistress Sophie’s courage as much as Émile had. Mrs Kit and Agnes both said it had been an easy first birth. If so, she was happy to escape a difficult one.

  Sophie and Émile had made the journey down to Buckinghamshire and the incredibly grand Dubois Court by easy stages, following their house
hold from Plas Planwydden some weeks after Sophie’s sickness had reluctantly left her. Before leaving, she was able to enjoy Lord Ynyr’s and Morwenna’s wedding breakfast as she hadn’t Agnes and Georges’.

  By then, Miss Morwenna and Miss Lewis were long been cured of their other symptoms. That is, Sophie and the others supposed poor Morwenna to have suffered from vampire symptoms. She’d been too ladylike to say. Still, during her recovery, Katarina had supplied the Charged Wine for her and for Miss Lewis, and the cure had presumably been as quick as it had been with Émile and Georges.

  They had all sheltered the Dowager Countess from the truth. Lord Ynyr and Katarina distributed cures, while gradually the fear in the villages faded away. Everyone seemed happy to blame the vanished Kenrick and Captain Mackenzie for every unpleasant happening in the area since ten years before they came to it, including the recent bad harvest.

  The Dowager Countess had pointed out at length to the recovered Émile the moral of the Kenricks’ disappearance following on from those Mischievous Experiments.

  He had smiled imperturbably. “You are fully in the right, Madame. Yet, given his unpopularity, it seems ungrateful of the people to blame him for his own disappearance.”

  The Count and Émile were now as friendly as ever, though once, when a neighbour was holding forth about hangings and floggings for criminals, Lord Ynyr had looked uneasy, while Monsieur Gilles smiled imperturbably through this, too.

  By the time of the Count’s wedding, Sian Jones had been bursting with pride over her lusty baby boy.

  “That is very kind of you, Sophie.” Émile now said hoarsely, his back still turned. “But you must choose his second name yourself. John, if you like, after your father and brother?”

  “Gilles, then.”

  At that, he turned about in astonishment, his eyes still damp. “Whatever you wish, ma chère – but why?”

  “Because I love Monsieur Gilles Long Legs entirely.” said Sophie.

  THE END

  Lucinda Elliot 2012

  NOTES

  ‘The Light of Other Days’

  A quote from the 1815 poem of that name by Thomas Moore (1780-1852

  The first verse is; -

  Oft in the stilly night,

  Ere slumbers chain has bound me

  Fond memory brings the light

  Of other days around me;

  The smiles, the tears, of boyhood years,

  The words of love then spoken

  The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone,

  The cheerful hearts now broken!

  Thus in the stilly night

  Ere slumbers chain has bound me

  Sad memory brings the light

  Of other days around me.’

  Chester

  The County town of Cheshire, England.

  In the eighteenth century, still a busy port.

  Plas Uchaf

  ‘Highest Hall’ in Welsh

  Famau Mountain

  Mountain in Clwyd, North Wales, UK

  Brighthelmstone

  At this time, Brighton was a tiny fishing village known by its full name.

  Enemies of the state

  Numerous aristocrats and others were held as enemies of the state during the Terror, many being guillotined. Monsieur and Madame Dubois have engaged in political intrigue.

  Plas Cyfeillgar

  ‘Friendly Hall’ in Welsh. Of course, anything but.

  Committee of Public Safety

  The Jacobin government disapproved of formal address modes, but policing such a thing must surely have been difficult in a time of national emergency.

  Levée en masse

  In April 1793 the revolutionary government, faced with attempted invasion to restore monarchical power in France by Austria, Spain, Prussia, Britain, Piedmont and the United Provinces, issued a directive calling on all unmarried young men under 25 to enlist in the military, and imposed quotas on areas. Evasion and desertion were high.

  Tyburn

  The gallows near Hyde Park where many Highwaymen and robbers ended their days.

  Clarissa

  A moralistic novel written in 1748 by Samuel Richardson, in which the virtuous heroine is pursued and eventually raped by the rakish Richard Lovelace.

  St Nicholas’ Day

  Traditionally the day for giving presents, celebrated on 6th December. Later, this became part of the Christmas Day festivities.

  St Asaph’s

  Small town sized city in Denbighshire, approximately three miles from the coast

  Natural philosophy

  There was no term for what is now ‘science’ at the time; authors have to improvise; some years later, Mary Shelley used this term in ‘Frankenstein’ for scientific processes.

  Ombra mai fu

  Famous aria from Handel’s 1738 opera ‘Xerxes’ addressed to a tree.

  Challenge him

  Challenge him to a duel.

  Name his friends

  That is, name people as his seconds in a duel.

  Lascia che’io pianga

  Aria from Handel’s 1711 opera Rinaldo in which the innocent heroine mourns her misfortune in being captive to her enchantress rival.

  Pamela

  Moralistic novel (1747) by Samuel Richardson in which a virtuous servant girl resists the improper advances of her employer Mr B so that eventually he proposes.

  Llandyrnog

  Village in Denbighshire, approximately three miles from the Famau Mountain

  St James

  The royal residence at that time.

  Comte de Sade

  Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) founder of of modern sadism.

  Admitting to the ‘de’ wasn’t exactly discreet

  The aristocratic names ‘de’ etc were officially frowned on in revolutionary France.

  ‘Too fierce to wear any breeches’

  The sans culottes worse trousers rather rather than breeches, and were invariably portrayed as semi naked ruffians in the British press of the time.

  ‘Too controlling’

  A husband was considered entitled to dictate his wife’s reading at the time, and Lord Ynyr defers to Émile as Sophie’s fiancé.

  Plas Planwydden

  ‘Plane Tree Mansion’. ynchronicity, as in the song ‘Ombra, mai fu’ which is special for Émile and Sophie, Xerxes addresses that aria to a plane tree.

  ‘Sister Harriet’

  Sisters-in-law were called ‘Sisters’ at the time.

  Cat O’ nine tails

  Savage whip used for punishment in the navy at the time.

  Front

  A fringe of false curls.

  Altitudes

  A cant slang expression for ‘drunk’.

  Bully

  The term at the time for a ponce.

  Mountebank

  People who sold quack remedies at fairs etc.

  Drawn

  A reference to the unspeakable method of execution in fact reserved for traitors, hanging, drawing and quartering, where the person was hanged and then cut down whilst still alive to be disembowelled, the entrails then being burnt in front of the person’s eyes before final dismemberment, the quartering.

  On her promotion

  That is, seeking social advancement.

  Blue-stocking

  A term of contempt for an obviously intellectual women.

  Gentlemen of the Road

  Highwaymen.

  Mr B

  The lecherous master in Samuel Richardson’s 1747 novel Pamela.

  Mysteries of Udolpho

  Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe (1794) in which the heroine is imprisoned in a castle, surrounded by brigands.

  So

  An term of the time for ‘pregnant’.

  Goody Two Shoes

  An old expression for an excessively virtuous person, origin unknown, but further popularised by the anonymous book ‘The History of Little Goody Two Shoes’ (1765) featuring an exemplary girl.

  Mill

  A fis
t fight

  Fever

  Any wound at that time was invariably followed by an attack of fever