‘We’re trying to find as many different kinds as we can,’ Faith explained.
Sophie nodded approvingly. ‘They are such pretty creatures on the wing.’
Jean-Robert paused in his eating, not allowed to speak with his mouth full. ‘They lay their eggs — ’
Sophie held up a hand. ‘Not at table, Jean-Robert.’
The boy looked crestfallen. His mother’s cold note of disapproval was all too familiar to him. There was so much that seemed to bore her or raise her ire, and he never knew whether she was going to smother him in affectionate embraces, calling him stupid baby names, or give him an icy stare that was worse than a slap. It was the same at bedtime. He loved to see her come in and sit on his bed to bid him good night and kiss his brow, but if she was tired or cross about something, even when it was nothing to do with him, she would not come near him as if she had to punish him as well as everyone else. His father had spoken his name from the head of the table and he looked up.
‘Yes, Papa?’
‘It’s time I took you to a silk farm. There you will see the full cycle of life for the silk moth just as it is for the butterfly.’
‘Oh, yes!’
‘I have to go on business to Lyon next week and we can ride out to one of the silk farms, where you may spend a whole day if you wish.’ He glanced smilingly at Faith. ‘Perhaps you would like to come with us since you are the butterfly expert. I have already offered to escort a Madame Leblanc, whose husband is a mill-owner in Lyon and an old friend of mine. She has been in Paris on family business and has offered us hospitality in their charming home.’
She answered him merrily. ‘I’m not exactly an expert, but I accept with great pleasure.’
Jean-Robert was buoyant again, glad to see his mother was nodding permission. It did not strike him as odd that she should not be coming too, because she never went anywhere since being in mourning and never far afield before that, liking best to be with Grandpère. ‘What fun it will be!’
‘It’s not just for your amusement,’ his mother said sternly, ‘but your first step towards the day when you will be head of your late grandfather’s silk business.’
He did not dare to remind her that he would also be Master of Sotherleigh. She would not allow him to speak of it to her, but he had heard so much about it from his father that, if the truth could be known, he would have preferred to go there instead of to Lyon, much as he wanted to see the silk moths.
Faith was not sorry to have a few days away from her hostess. Sophie was so withdrawn and solitary, full of courtesy on the surface, but with no warmth underneath. For this reason Faith missed Julia more than ever, but she was enjoying her stay in Paris and did not intend to leave until Christopher went home in the autumn. Her parents had written about the plague, news which she had kept from Julia at Michael’s request, and it was due to her mother’s nervousness about infection that she was not expecting to be called back when it became known that Julia had returned home. Several cases of the plague had broken out all over England where Londoners had taken refuge in country seats, or humbler folk with relatives, one case not far from Bletchingdon itself.
The fact that Sophie was useless as a chaperone was not important. Michael had introduced Julia and her to many charming French people and she always made sure she was with one of the older married women at social functions.
She was jealous of her good name, not only for herself but for Christopher, and she would allow no blemish to mark it. Undoubtedly he was destined to be a great man and she wanted to be a credit to him. She knew his eye for beauty had found its outlet at last in architecture, revealed in his buildings that had arisen and were arising in England from his designs and direction. Who knew what marvels would result from the inspiration of France? Faith liked to believe that something of his love for her would play a part in every masterpiece that resulted from this visit.
She had the most interesting time in Lyon, Michael taking her and Jean-Robert to the various silk mills, some of which were weaving the most glorious damasks and brocades for Versailles, while the kindness and hospitality of the Leblancs added greatly to her enjoyment. Sometimes she wondered if it disappointed Michael that his son, although fascinated by the cocoons, the caterpillars and the moths at the silk farm, showed little or no interest in the large looms or the process of weaving.
‘Now tell me everything about your visit,’ Sophie said to Jean-Robert upon his return with his father and Faith.
‘There was so much, Maman.’ He did not really know where to begin.
They were all in the salon, where Sophie, wearing one of her elegant black gowns, was seated in an ivory damask chair, crimson silk panels behind her. It was her habit never to enter a room without observing where she would be most set off to advantage. Before going into mourning she would stand instead of sitting if the furnishings in other houses clashed with whatever she was wearing. She smiled at her young son standing before her. ‘What did you like best? Apart, no doubt, from what you saw of sericulture at the silk farm.’
He answered without hesitation. ‘A cowherd let me help milk the cows when we stayed with the Simond family on our journey home.’
‘I don’t want to hear about that. What about the mills?’
He made a grimace. ‘Mostly people work in their own homes. The looms fill a room from floor to ceiling. Else it’s three or four looms under one roof and no space to spare. At all the places little children have to crouch underneath to mend the threads that break and the weavers kick them when they are slow. They cry, but they daren’t stop. I never want ever to have anything to do with looms or silk.’ He stamped his foot in emphasis.
She struck him so hard that he was knocked off balance and his head thudded against a carved table leg. Michael and Faith both sprang to their feet and dashed to the boy, but Sophie did not look at him, her expression furious. With a hiss of her black taffeta skirts she was out of her chair and stalking from the room.
‘Is he insensible?’ Faith asked fearfully as Michael lifted his son and laid him on a couch.
‘No. Just shocked.’ He looked down into Jean-Robert’s white face, ‘I fear you’re going to have a bump on your head as large as an egg, my son.’
The boy was tearful. ‘Why was Maman so angry?’
‘She was upset. We’ll talk about that later.’ Michael saw the cut was bleeding and unfolded a clean handkerchief from his pocket. ‘I’m going to make a wounded soldier of you, and then I’m sure Faith will read to you while you rest here for a while.’
When the binding was done and Faith had fetched a book, Michael went to find Sophie. She was not in her bedchamber. It was the first time he had entered there for many months. After she had refused to sleep with him any more, she had had her bedchamber completely refurbished as if to remove any association with his ever having been there. Silk-panelled with a gorgeously draped bed, its canopy gilded and plumed, it would have set harmoniously into the opulence of Versailles. Neither was she in her boudoir. A faint clatter came from her bathing room with its two marble baths where she soaped herself in one and rinsed herself in the other.
‘Sophie! Are you there?’
Immediately a maidservant opened the door, ‘It’s me, Monsieur. I’m putting out fresh towels.’
She had some over her arm to substantiate her words. At the back of his mind it registered that the girl looked flustered, but no doubt it was due to surprise at seeing him in his wife’s domain. ‘Have you seen Madame?’
‘No, Monsieur.’
As he left the girl breathed a sigh of relief. Putting down the towels, she returned to the cupboard where she had been helping herself from one of Madame Pallister’s flasks of beauty lotion. Carefully she finished pouring a little of the creamy lotion into a flat jar she had brought for the purpose. The grande madame never missed such tiny amounts and she was trying all of them in turn to see which suited her skin best. Popping a lid on to the jar, she put it out of sight in her apron pocket and repla
ced the flask. She had a moment’s anxiety as to whether she had put the various flasks back in the same order as they had been before Monsieur’s unexpected arrival had caused her to panic. She thought they looked the same and felt reasonably sure Madame would not notice any change in their positions. Hastily she relocked the cupboard with a hairpin. She was not greedy and made the lotion last. It would be another month or two before she helped herself again.
Michael traced Sophie to her late father’s bedchamber where nothing had been moved or changed since his last day. She was lying face down across the bed, her arms stretched across it. At the sound of his entry she sat up and glared, her face full of hatred.
‘You did that deliberately, didn’t you?’ she shrieked. ‘You took Jean-Robert to Lyon with the sole intent of turning him against my father’s greatest wish that his grandson should grow up absorbed in the business as he himself was from a boy!’
‘That was the last thing in my mind. I thought he would be interested to see the weaving just as Faith was. My fault was in forgetting the boy has tender feelings, young as he is. That is why you shall never strike him again as you did a few minutes ago.’
‘I’ll beat him into obedience to my father’s will if needs be!’
It was rare for Michael to lose his temper, but he lost it now. ‘Grief for your father is one thing, but this unhealthy obsession is another! This is our house — not his any longer — our marriage and our son. Our lives that have to be lived without this unhealthy obeisance to a shrine!’ With his arm he swept from a tall chest a pair of hair brushes, a watch and various other items, sending them crashing to the floor. She screamed and flew at him with her fingers like claws. He threw her back across the bed and wrenched its hangings down. Then he hurled away two pillows with such force that the day covers slid from them and one burst into a storm of feathers. Shrieking, she sprang forward from the bed to hang on to his arm. He shook her off, tossing shirts, cravats and collars from a clothes press before snatching out the drawers themselves and throwing them down. When he made for the side room where the rest of the wardrobe was kept she flung herself screaming in front of the door, ‘I’ll kill you before I let you go in there.’
He shoved her aside and, when he pulled open the door, he saw to his horror that it was as if his father-in-law stood there, a wicker frame rigged out in a velvet jacket, cape and breeches, one of the late man’s periwigs draped over the wooden top and crowned by a plumed hat. Bucket-topped boots completed the illusion. He gave a roar and knocked the effigy flying. As he turned about he saw her aiming one of her father’s pistols at him. He yelled out and she fired, the explosion filling the side-room with smoke.
The ball had missed him by inches, burying itself in the wall. He threw himself on her, clapping a hand over her mouth as he dragged her back into the bedchamber with him. As he had expected, shouts and commotion sounded from the stairs as those of the household came to investigate. Sophie was struggling wildly in his grasp, but he managed to open the door a crack to shout out reassuringly.
‘No need for alarm! I was examining my father-in-law’s pistols and one went off.’ As he closed the door again she tried to claw his face, but he gripped her by the wrists and threw her back from him. ‘I’ll have none of that!’
Her face was dark with fury. ‘This was my sanctuary and you have violated it!’
‘For that you would have killed me!’
‘Again and again if that were possible!’ She spat the words at him.
‘Without thought for Jean-Robert? Would you have had him grow up in the shadow of a murder that would have blighted his whole life?’ He was maddened by rage. ‘I’ve suffered your acid tongue, your rebuffs, your slights and your coldness all these years! I have forgiven and excused many of your devious ways, but the lack of thought for our son is beyond my endurance!’
He struck her with force across one side of her face and then the other before he hurled her from him across the bed. She landed like a twisted rag doll in a tumble of petticoats, blood gushing from her cut lip, and lay with her eyes shut, colour flaring where his blows had struck. Bruises already showed on her wrists from the struggle.
There was a dreadful silence in the room. The pounding of his heart subsided and his head cleared. Never before had he laid violent hands on a woman. Self-disgust rose in him that he should have allowed himself to be driven to such extremities of temper that he should have beaten the mother of his son. He felt degraded by his own action.
Had he stunned her? She was lying very still, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Leaning over her, he took a corner of the sheet to try to stem the flow of blood from her face. Then she opened her glittering eyes and her visage became a gorgon-like mask of hatred as she smiled triumphantly with her distorted swollen mouth. She knew the humiliation was his, not hers.
With a groan he threw himself out of the room.
The next day he had his father-in-law’s rooms completely cleared. The furniture was dispersed to other parts of the house and when the clothes were sold the money was distributed to the poor. Decorators were set to work and the whole suite was refurbished. Sophie kept to her darkened bedroom until her lip healed and her bruises vanished, the excuse of having one of her headaches keeping the secret of the confrontation from the rest of the household. Faith was a nuisance, coming twice a day to see if there was anything she needed and bringing her flowers and drinks and suchlike, but she kept well down under the bedclothes and the Englishwoman suspected nothing.
When eventually Sophie reappeared there was nothing to show of the beating she had received, except a tiny indentation in her lower lip. A touch of carmine concealed it, but she was going to take a savage pleasure in tapping against it as if thoughtfully, especially in company, to remind Michael constantly of his brutality towards her on that terrible day.
She mended the rift with her son in the first seconds of their reunion. The cut on his head had been deeper than had been realized at first and took a while to heal, but he was incapable of holding a grudge and flung his arms lovingly about his mother’s neck when she stooped to embrace him.
‘Don’t have such a long headache again, Maman,’ he appealed. ‘I missed you so much.’
She never went near the refurbished suite. The atmosphere she had maintained had been destroyed by the husband she loathed and the rooms no longer held any interest for her. Fortunately she had taken possession of her father’s jewellery after his death and had left the watch only to add to the impression of his still being there. Michael informed her that it had not been broken in its fall, owing to its velvet case, and he had taken it into his care to be a keepsake for the boy from his grandfather when he was old enough to appreciate it. She listened, but made no comment, for they were alone. She was resolved never to speak to Michael again except when necessary before their son or when others were present, but otherwise she would treat Michael as if he were invisible. She resumed her morbid visits to the cemetery and these were the highlights of her days, more important than anything else.
Then at breakfast one morning Michael received a letter from Adam that had been sent from a place of detention in Dieppe where he had been incarcerated since landing there from England over two weeks before. Michael read it aloud to Sophie and Faith.
For mercy’s sake try to get me out of this hole, Brother-in-law. I was detained when it was discovered I had come from London, such a natural fear in France of infection being brought across the Channel that my certificate of health was discounted. I sympathize with the French, who are as familiar with outbreaks of the plague as the rest of Europe, but that does not help my situation and I have failed to convince the authorities that I should be released. If they should put a new traveller from London into my cell then my quarantine would start all over again. My felicitations to my wife, who by now has surely heard of the plague and imagines me still in London instead of languishing here in Dieppe.
Michael left Paris within the hour, taking an eminent doct
or with him. They arrived at Dieppe to find Adam still on his own in a cell and a thorough examination by the doctor declared him free of infection. He was anxious when he learned that Julia had left for England about the same time as he had set out from there.
‘I’ll take the next ship home,’ he said to Michael, after thanking him for acting so promptly. ‘Julia will be wondering what has happened to me.’
‘When I left her she was determined to go to London, expecting to find you there, but I’m sure she will have returned to Sotherleigh long since. Come together to visit us another time in happier circumstances.’
‘I shall look forward to that, my friend.’
A ship was leaving on the tide within the same hour as Adam’s release and he boarded it at once. He paced the deck in his impatience to be home and watched constantly for the shoreline. At the back of his mind there was unease about the time Julia had been with Christopher in Paris. Admittedly Faith had been there as well and the two of them would never have been alone, but when he saw her again, if her attachment had grown through being in alien surroundings without the restrictions of home, he would soon know.
Once ashore, a swift change of fast horses along the route brought him galloping through the gates of Sotherleigh at sunset; candlelight was appearing in the windows of the house. When he was admitted and had given his hat, cloak, gloves and riding whip to a manservant on duty, Patience came running into the hall holding a younger child with fair curls by the hand.
‘Who’s this, Patience?’ he greeted his wife’s little half-sister. ‘Have you a new playmate?’
‘It’s Katy. She’s come to live here. Julia brought her from London.’
‘And where is Julia. Do you know?’
Mary had come from the direction of the Queen’s Parlour and she hurried forward with a smile as he came to greet her with a kiss, ‘I can answer that, Adam. Oh, how glad Julia will be to see you and on such a special day!’
He grinned. ‘What can that be?’
‘She comes out of quarantine this evening. Don’t look alarmed! All is well. You can go to meet her instead of me. It will give her a wonderful surprise.’
Circle of Pearls Page 60
