King of the Castle

by Виктория Холт

  “You will hear a great deal about it while you are here. Often it is the main topic of conversation. I trust you will not find it tiresome.”

  “I am sure I shall find it most interesting. It is always pleasant to learn.”

  I saw the smile at the corner of his mouth. Governess! I thought.

  Certainly if I ever had to take up that profession || I should have the right demeanour for it.

  Philippe spoke rather hesitantly: “What picture are you starting on.

  Mademoiselle Lawson? “

  “A portrait, painted last century in the middle, I should think. I place it about seventeen-forty.”

  “You see, Cousin,” said the Comte, “Mademoiselle Lawson is an expert.

  She loves pictures. She chided me for neglecting them as though I were a parent who had failed in his duty. “

  Genevieve looked down at her place in embarrassment. The Comte turned to her.

  “You should take advantage of Mademoiselle Lawson’s presence here. She could teach you enthusiasm.”

  “Yes, Papa,” said Genevieve.

  “And,” he went on, ‘if you can persuade her to talk to you in English, you might be able to speak that language intelligibly. You should try to persuade Mademoiselle Lawson when she is not engaged with her pictures, to tell you about England and the English. You could learn from their less rigid etiquette. It might give you confidence, and er aplomb. “

  “We have already spoken together in English,” I said.

  “Genevieve has a good vocabulary. Pronunciation is always a problem until one has conversed freely with natives. But it comes in time.”

  Again spoken like a governess! I thought; and I knew he was thinking the same. But I had done my best to support Genevieve and defy him. My dislike was growing with every moment.

  “It is an excellent opportunity for you, Genevieve. Do you ride.

  Mademoiselle Lawson? “

  “Yes. I am fond of riding.”

  “There are horses in the stables. One of the grooms would advise you which was your most suitable mount. Genevieve rides too … a little.

  You might ride together. The present governess is too timid.

  Genevieve, you could show Mademoiselle Lawson the countryside. “

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Our country is not very attractive, I fear. The wine growing land rarely is. But if you ride out a little way I am sure you will find something to please you.”

  “You are very kind. I should like to ride.”

  He waved a hand, and Philippe, no doubt feeling that it was time he made an effort in the conversation, took the subject back to pictures.

  I talked about the portrait I was working on. I explained one or two details and made them rather technical in the hope of confusing the Comte. He listened gravely with a faint smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. It was disconcerting to suspect that he knew what was going on in my mind. If this were so, he would know that I disliked him, and oddly enough this seemed to add to his interest in me.

  “I am certain,” I was saying, ‘that although this is far from a masterpiece, the artist had a mastery of colour. I can see this already. I am sure the colour of the gown will be startling, and the emeralds, restored to the colour the artist intended, will be magnificent. “

  “Emeralds …” said Philippe.

  The Comte looked at him.

  “Oh, yes, this is the picture in which they are seen in all their glory. It will be interesting to see them … if only on canvas.”

  “That,” murmured Philippe, ‘is the only chance we shall have of seeing them. “

  “Who knows?” said the Comte. He turned to me.

  “Phi lippe is very interested in our emeralds.”

  “Aren’t we all?” retorted Philippe with unusual boldness.

  “We should be if we could lay our hands on them.”

  Genevieve said in a high, excited voice: “They must be somewhere, Nounou says they are in the chateau. If we could find them … oh, wouldn’t it be exciting!”

  “That old nurse of yours is sure to be right,” said the Comte with sarcasm.

  “And I do agree that it would be exciting to find them … apart from the fact that the discovery would add considerably to the family’s fortunes.”

  “Indeed!” said Philippe, his eyes glowing.

  “Do you think they are in the chateau?” I asked. Philippe said eagerly: “They have never been discovered elsewhere and stones like that would be recognized. They could not be disposed of easily.”

  “My dear Philippe,” said the Comte.

  “You forget the time when they were lost. A hundred years ago. Mademoiselle Lawson, such stones could have been broken up, sold separately and forgotten. The markets must have been flooded with stones which had been stolen from the mansions of France by those who had little understanding of their value. It is almost certain that this was the fate of the Gaillard emeralds. The canaille who ransacked our houses and stole our treasures had no appreciation of what they took.” The momentary anger which had shown in his eyes faded and he turned to me.

  “Ah, Mademoiselle Lawson, how fortunate that you did not live in those days. How would you have endured to see great paintings desecrated, thrown out of windows to lie neglected and exposed to the weather … to collect what is it… bloom?”

  “It was tragic that so much that was beautiful was lost.” I turned to Philippe: “You were telling me about the emeralds.”

  “They were in the family for years,” he said.

  “They were worth … it is difficult to say, for values have changed so much. They were priceless. They were kept in our strongroom at the chateau. Yet they were lost at the time of the Revolution. No one knew what had become of them. But the belief has always been that they are somewhere in the chateau.”

  “Periodically there are treasure hunts,” said the Comte.

  “Someone has a theory and there is a great deal of excitement. We look. We dig. We attempt to discover hidden places in the chateau that have not been opened for years. This produces a great deal of activity but never any emeralds.”

  “Papa,” cried Genevieve, ‘couldn’t we have a treasure hunt now? “

  The pheasant had been brought in. It was excellent but I scarcely tasted it. I found the conversation all-absorbing. I had been in a state of exaltation all day because I was going to stay here.

  “You have so impressed my daughter. Mademoiselle Lawson,” said the Comte, ‘that she thinks you will succeed where others have failed. You want a renewed search, Genevieve, because you feel that now Mademoiselle Lawson is here she cannot fail. “

  “No,” said Genevieve, “I didn’t think that. I just want to look for the emeralds.”

  “How ungracious you are! Forgive her, Mademoiselle Lawson. And Genevieve, I suggest that you show Mademoiselle Lawson the chateau.”

  He turned to me: “You have not yet explored it I am sure, and with your lively and most intelligent curiosity you will want to. I believe your father understood architecture as you do pictures and that you worked with him. Why, who knows, you might discover the hiding place which has baffled us for a hundred years. “

  “I should be interested to see the chateau,” I admitted, ‘and if Genevieve will show me I shall be delighted. “

  Genevieve did not look at me and the Comte frowned at her. I said quickly: “We will make an appointment if that is agreeable to you, Genevieve?”

  She looked at her father and then at me.

  “Tomorrow morning?” she said.

  “I am working in the morning, but tomorrow afternoon I should be most happy to come.”

  “Very well,” she mumbled.

  “I am sure it will be a profitable excursion for you, Genevieve,” said the Comte.

  Through the souffle we talked of the neighbourhood mostly of the vineyards. I felt I had made great progress. I had dined with the family, something poor Mademoiselle Dubois had never achieved; I had been give
n permission to ride1 had brought my old riding-habit with me hopefully; I was to be shown over the chateau the next day; and I had achieved some sort of relationship with the Comte, although I was not sure what sort.

  I was rather pleased when I could retire to my room, but before I left, the Comte said that there was a book in the library which I might like to see.

  “My father had a man down here to write it,” he explained.

  “He was extremely interested in the history of our family. The book was written and printed. It is years since I read it, but I do believe it would interest you.”

  I said that I was sure it would and I should be delighted to see it.

  “I will have it sent to you,” he told me.

  I took my leave of the company when Genevieve did and we left the men together. She conducted me to my room and bade me a cool good night.

  I had not been long in my room when there was a knock on the door and a maid entered with the book.

  “Monsieur Ie Comte said you wanted this,” she told me.

  She went out leaving me standing with the book in my hand. It was a slim volume and there were some line drawings of the castle. I was sure I should find it absorbing, but at the moment my mind was full of the evening’s events.

  I did not want to go to bed for my mind was too stimulated for sleep, and my thoughts were dominated by the Comte. I had expected him to be unusual. After all he was a man surrounded by mystery. His daughter was afraid of him; I was not sure about his cousin, but I suspected he was too. The Comte was a man who liked those about him to fear him, and yet despised them for doing it. That was the conclusion I had come to. I had noted the exasperation those two had aroused in him and yet by his manner he had added to their fear. I wondered what his life had been like with the woman who had been unfortunate enough to marry him.

  Had she cowered from his contempt? How had he ill-treated her? It was not easy to think of him indulging in physical violence . and yet how could I be sure of anything where he was concerned? I scarcely knew him . yet.

  The last word excited me. I had to admit it. For how did he think of me? Scarcely at all. He had looked me over, had decided to give me the job, and that could well be the end of his interest. Why had I been invited to dine with the family? So that he could look more intently at a human specimen who interested him vaguely? Because there was nothing else of interest at the castle? Dining alone with Philippe and Genevieve would be somewhat boring. I had defied him not altogether successfully for he was too clever not to see through my defence - and because I was bold it had amused him to submit me to further examination, to attempt to deflate me.

  He was a sadist. That was my conclusion. He was responsible for his wife’s death, for even if he had not administered the dose he had driven her to take it. Poor woman! What must her life have been! How wretched could a woman be to be driven to take her life. Poor Genevieve, who was her daughter! I must try to understand that girl, somehow make a friend of her. I felt she was a lost child wandering through a maze, growing increasingly more afraid that she would never find a way out.

  And I, who prided myself on being a practical woman, could grow quite fanciful in this place, where strange events must have happened over centuries, where a woman so recently had died unhappily.

  To drive this man out of my thoughts I tried to think of another. How different was the open face of Jean Pierre Bastide!

  Then suddenly I began to smile. It was strange that I who had never been interested in a man since I had loved Charles years ago had now found two who were constantly in my thoughts.

  How foolish! I admonished myself. What have either of them to do with you?

  I picked up the book the Comte had given me and began to read.

  The castle had been built in the year 1405 and there was still much of the original structure standing. The two wings which flanked the old building had been added later, they were well over a hundred feet tall and the cylindrical forts gave them added solidity. Comparisons were drawn to the royal chateau of Loches and it seemed that life in Chateau Gaillard was conducted in much the same manner as it was on Loches; for in Gaillard the de la Talles ruled as kings. Here they had their dungeons in which they imprisoned their enemies. In the most ancient part of the building there was one of the most perfect examples of the oubliette.

  When these dungeons had been examined by the writer of the book, cages had been discovered similar to those in Loches, small hollows cut out of stone in which there was not room for a man to stand up; in these, human beings had been chained and left to die by fifteenth-, sixteenth and seventeenth-century de la Talles in the same way as Louis XI had dealt with his enemies. One man, left to die in the oubliette, had attempted to cut his way to freedom and had succeeded in boring a passage which had brought him to one of the cages in the dungeons where he had died in frustrated despair.

  I read on, fascinated not only by the descriptions of the chateau but by the history of the family.

  Often during the centuries the family had been in conflict with the kings; more often they had stood beside them. One of the women of the house had been a mistress of Louis XV before she married into the family and it was this king who had presented her with an emerald necklace of great value. It was considered no dishonour to be a mistress of the king, and the de la Talle who had married her when she left the royal service had sought to vie with the king’s generosity and had presented his wife with an emerald bracelet made up of priceless stones to match those of the necklace. But a bracelet was less valuable than a necklace; so there had been a tiara of emeralds and two emerald rings, a brooch and a girdle all set with emeralds, as proof that the de la Talles could stand equal with royalty. Thus the famous de la Talle emeralds had come into being.

  The book confirmed what I already knew, that the emeralds had been lost during the Revolution. Until then they had been kept with other treasures in the strongroom in the gun-gallery to which no one but the master of the house had the key or even knew where the key was hidden. So it had been until the Terror broke out all over France.

  It was late but I could not stop reading and I had come to the chapter headed “The de la Talles and the Revolution’.

  Lothair de la Talle, the Comte at that time, was a man of thirty; he had married a few years before that fatal year and was called to Paris for the meeting of the States General. He never returned to the castle; he was one of the first whose blood was spilt on the guillotine. His wife Mary Louise, twenty-two years old and pregnant, remained in the chateau with the old Comtesse, Lothair’s mother. I pictured it clearly; the hot days of July; the news being brought to that young woman of her husband’s death; her grief for her husband, her fears for the child soon to be born. I imagined her at the highest window of the highest tower, straining her eyes over the countryside; wondering if the revolutionaries would come marching her way; asking herself how long the people of the district would allow her to live in peace.

  All through the sultry days she must have waited, afraid to go into the little town, watchful of the work people who toiled in the vineyards, of the servants who doubtless grew a little less subservient with the passing of each day. I pictured the proud old Comtesse, desperately trying to preserve the old ways, and what those two brave women must have suffered during those terrible days.

  Few escaped the Terror and eventually it reached the Chateau Gaillard. A band of revolutionaries were marching on the chateau, waving their banners, singing the new song from the south. The workers left the vineyard; from the little cottages of the town ran the women and children. The stall-holders and the shopkeepers spilled into the square. The aristocrats had had their day. They were masters now.

  I shivered as I read how the young countess had left the castle and sheltered in a nearby house. I knew what house it was; I knew which family had taken her in. Had I not heard that the family histories were entwined? The de la Talles were never friends, though, only patrons. I could clearly remember Madame Bastide�
�s proud looks when she had said that.

  So Madame Bastide, who must have been Jean Pierre’s great-grandmother, had sheltered the Comtesse. She had ruled her household so that even the men had not dared to disobey her. They were with the revolutionaries preparing to pillage the castle while she hid the Comtesse in her house and forbade them all to whisper outside the house a word of what was happening.

  The old Comtesse refused to leave the chateau. She had lived there; she would die there. And she went into the chapel there to await death at the hands of the rebels. Her name was Genevieve and she prayed to St. Genevieve for help. She heard the rough shouting and coarse laughter as the mob broke into the castle; she knew they were tearing down the paintings and the tapestries, throwing them from the windows to their comrades.

  And there were those who came to the chapel. But before they entered they sought to tear down the statue of St. Genevieve which had been set up over the door. They climbed up to it but they could not move it.

  Inflamed with wine they called to their comrades. Before they continued to pillage the chateau they must break down the statue.

  At the altar the old Comtesse continued to pray to St. Genevieve while the shouting grew louder and every moment she expected the rabble to break into the chapel and kill her.

  Ropes were brought; to the drunken strains of the “Marseillaise’ and ” Ca Ira’ they worked. She heard the great shout that went up.

  “Heave, comrades … all together!” And then the crash, the screams and the terrible silence.

  The chateau was out of danger; St. Genevieve lay broken at the door of the chapel, but beneath her lay the bodies of three dead men; she had saved the chateau, for superstitious fearful in spite of their professed ungodliness, the revolutionaries slunk away. A few bold ones had tried to rally the mob but it was useless. Many of them came from the surrounding district and they had lived their lives under the shadow of the de la Talles. They feared them now as they had in the past. They had one wish and that was to turn their backs on Chateau Gaillard.

  The old Comtesse came out of the chapel when all was silent. She looked at the broken statue and kneeling beside it gave thanks to her patron saint. Then she went into the chateau and with the help of one servant attempted to set it to rights. There she lived alone for some years, caring for the young Comte who was stealthily brought back to his home. His mother had died in giving birth to him, which was not surprising considering all that she had suffered before his birth, and the fact that Madame Bastide had been afraid to call the midwife to her. There they lived for years in the chateau the old Comtesse, the young child and one servant; until the times changed and the Revolution passed and life at the chateau began to slip back into the old ways. Servants came back; repairs were made; the vineyards became prosperous. But although the strongroom in which they had been kept was untouched, the emeralds had disappeared and were lost to the family from that time.