They talked of village matters. Hope had a little baby and was happy although for a long time she had been unable to get over her sister’s death. Everything was the same at the vicarage. Frances Meadows was a wonderful worker and managed the household efficiently as well as countless village concerns.
“Life is very quiet for us compared with you in your wonderful salon,” said Clare.
“But it suits us very well.”
My father’s sight had grown much worse. He did not wear glasses because they made no difference. I thought the time must come when he would be totally blind. I dreaded that day and I know he did.
Clare had long talks with me.
“He is adjusting himself gradually,” she said.
“I read to him. He loves that. Of course he can’t paint at all now. It’s heartbreaking to see him in the studio. He goes up there quite often still. I think your success means a great deal to him.”
“Clare,” I told her, “I don’t know how to be grateful enough to you.”
“It’s I who should be grateful. Before I came to you, life was so empty. Now it is full of meaning. I think I was meant to look after people.”
“It’s a very noble mission in life.”
“Your father is so kind … so good, I’m the lucky one. I am so sorry for people who haven’t had my luck. I often grieve for poor Faith Camborne.”
“She was always so helpless,” I said.
“I know. I tried to befriend her. I did what I could …”
“You were always very helpful to her and I know she was very fond of you.”
“All we can do now is pray that Hope will stop grieving for her sister and enjoy what life has given her … a good husband and a lovely baby.”
“Dear Clare,” I murmured, kissing her, Kendal was very excited to find he had a grandfather. He climbed all over him and peered into his face. He must have heard talk of his very imminent blindness because one day he climbed onto his knees and looking long into his face said:
“How are your poor eyes today?”
My father was so moved that he was almost in tears.
“I’ll see for you,” Kendal said.
“I’ll hold your hand all the time and won’t let you fall over.”
And when I saw the expression on my father’s face I could only rejoice once more in my boy and regret nothing just nothing-that had given him to me.
They were going on to Italy. My father wanted Clare to see those works of art which had affected him so deeply when he had had eyes to see them. I believed he would see them again through Clare.
She was so gentle with him, so kind, not fussing too much but just enough to let him know how much she cared for him, letting him do what he could for himself and yet at the same time always being there if he should need help.
I felt glad that they had come. It was as though a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I no longer had a dark secret which must be withheld from them. I should be able to write to them freely in future.
“Please, Clare,” I said when they left, “You must come and see me often. It is difficult for me to come to Farringdon, but do come again soon.”
They promised that they would.
Two years had passed. Kendal was now approaching his fifth birthday.
He could draw very well and there was nothing he liked better than to come to the studio in the afternoons when there were no clients there and sit at a bench and paint. He painted the statues he had seen in his favourite Luxembourg Gardens. Chopin particularly delighted him but he did some recognizable pictures of Watteau, Delacroix and Georges Sand. He had a skill which I thought was miraculous. I was writing to my father regularly for he was always wanting news of Kendal and was delighted to hear of his interest in painting; he wrote that at five years old I had begun to show such leanings.
“It is wonderful,” wrote my father, ‘to know that the link is not broken. “
He and Clare came to Paris twice during that period.
He was almost blind now and his writing was becoming difficult to decipher. Clare often wrote in his place. She told me that the decline in his sight, though gradual, was definite. However, he had accepted it and was very happy to talk with her, and she was reading to him more and more. He was up to date with the news and always liked to learn what was happening in France.
“I don’t read to him anything that I think might distress him,” she wrote.
“He did get a little uneasy about the situation over there.
There seems to be a certain dissatisfaction with the Emperor and with the Empress. She is beautiful, I know, but we hear that she is extravagant and then of course she is Spanish and the French always did dislike foreigners. Look how they hated Marie Antoinette. I think your father is always a little anxious that what happened eighty years ago will start all over again. “
I didn’t take much notice of that when I read it. Life in Paris was so pleasant. We had our soirees where beautiful and intelligent people congregated. We talked art more than politics, but I did notice that the latter were beginning to come more and more into the conversation.
Nicole was delighted with life, I think. She lived luxuriously and loved her soirees. I think now and then she took a lover, but there was no really serious relationship. I did not enquire and she did not tell me. I think in her heart she was always aware of what she called my Anglo-Saxon respectability, and she wanted nothing disturbed.
I was not without my admirers. I had never been beautiful but I had acquired something during my years with Nicole. A poise, I suppose. My work was highly successful and I was treated with great respect. It was considered a symbol of social rank to have a Collison miniature, and with the perversity of fashion, my sex, which had been a drawback, now became an asset.
I liked some of the men who made approaches to me, but I could never enter into an intimate relationship. As soon as they showed any signs of familiarity my whole being would shrink and I would see that face leering at me. It had become more and more like the demon-gargoyle of Notre Dame as the years passed.
We were all very happy. I engaged a nursery governess for Kendal. I could not expect Nicole to take him out every day although she liked to on occasions. Jeanne Colet was an excellent woman, kind yet firm.
She was just what Kendal needed. He took to her immediately. He was a very lovable child. He was mischievous occasionally as most children are, but there was always an absence of malice in his mischief. He wanted to find out how things worked and that was why he destroyed them sometimes. It was never due to a desire to spoil.
I suppose I saw him as perfect; but it was a fact that others loved him on sight, and he was a favourite wherever he went. Even the grim concierge came out to see him as he passed in and out. He used to run in and tell me about the people he had met in the Gardens. He spoke a mixture of French and English which was enchanting and perhaps one of his attractions.
However, people noticed him and perhaps that was why when he came back and talked about the gentleman in the gardens I did not at first pay much attention.
There was a fashion at that time for kites. The children flew them in the Gardens every day. Kendal had a beautiful one with the oriflamme the ancient banner of France emblazoned across it. The gold flames on a scarlet background were most effective and it certainly looked very splendid flying up in the sky.
He used to take the kite into the Gardens every morning and he would come back and tell me how high it had flown far beyond the other kites. He had thought it was going to fly right to England to see his grandfather.
Then one day he came back without his kite. He was in tears.
He said: “It flew away.”
“How did you let it do that?”
“The man was showing me how to fly it higher.”
“What man?”
“The man in the Gardens.”
I looked at Jeanne.
“Oh, it’s a gentleman,” she said.
“He’s
sometimes there. He sits and watches the children play. He often has a word for Kendal.”
I said to Kendal: “Never mind. We’ll get you another kite.”
“It won’t be my oriflamme.”
“I expect we can find another somewhere,” I assured him.
The next morning he went offkiteless and rather disconsolate.
“I expect it’s with my grandfather by now,” he said, and that seemed to comfort him. Then he said anxiously: “Will he be able to see it?”
His face puckered a little and he showed more than sorrow for the loss of his kite. He was thinking of how his poor grandfather would not be able to see that glorious emblem. It was that thoughtfulness, that feeling for others, which made Kendal so endearing.
“I’ll find another oriflamme kite if I have to scour Paris,” I said to “I’ll do the same,” she told me.
I had a sitting that morning but promised myself that I would go out to look in the afternoon. There was no need to. Kendal came back from the Gardens with a kite about twice the size of the lost one, and more, glorious, more flamboyant was the red and gold emblem of ancient France.
He was so joyous I just knelt down and hugged him.
“Mind the kite,” he warned me.
“It’s a very precious one.”
I looked at Jeanne questioningly.
“It was the gentleman in the Gardens,” she said.
“He was there this morning with the kite.”
“You mean … he’s given it to Kendal?”
“He said it was partly his fault that the other one was lost. He and Kendal played with it all morning.”
I was a little uneasy.
“There was no need for him to replace it,” I said, ‘and even so, to buy such an obviously expensive one. “
A few days passed and each morning Kendal went off with his kite. He had been flying, he told me, with the gentleman in the Gardens.
There came what I was waiting for a cancellation from a sitter and I seized the opportunity. I was going to see the gentleman in the Gardens for myself.
When I saw him I stood very still, trembling with a terrible fear. My impulse was to snatch up Kendal and run as fast as I could.
He was coming towards me. He bowed. Memories came flooding back. I wanted to shout at him: “Go away. Get out of my life.”
But he stood there smiling.
“Mamma,” said Kendal and continued in his delightful combination of the two languages:’ Voila the monsieur of the jar dins
“Kendal and I have become friends,” said the Baron.
“How … how long has this been going on?” I murmured.
“Long enough for us to have become good friends.”
I could not look at him. He terrified me. I knew his ruthlessness and I greatly feared what his next action would be.
“How did you … ?”
“I saw him. I was attracted by him … I discovered his name.”
Kendal was looking from one to the other of us.
“Are we going to fly the kite?” he asked.
“But of course,” replied the Baron.
“Is it not a fine kite?” he went on, looking at me.
“It’s bigger than the one that went to England,” said Kendal.
“I hope your grandfather liked it.”
He knows so much! I thought. He has done this deliberately. Why?
He bowed to me.
“Will you forgive us? We must get the kite in the sky.
It has to show these others how inferior their little efforts are. “
“Come on,” said Kendal.
I watched them move off together. I was dazed. What is he trying to do now? I asked myself. What does this mean? He has been coming to the Gardens to see the boy. Oh, why? When has he ever been interested in children?
So I had not escaped from him. The last few years when I had come to terms with life, when I had learned to accept what it offered me and be grateful for it. they were just the interim.
I was afraid of this man. I knew him to be without mercy.
What did he want with my son?
The appalling truth had to be faced. Kendal was his son too.
I watched the oriflamme rise in the sky. There it was, outshining all others. Everyone was pointing it out and Kendal’s pride in it was immense.
What is he teaching the boy already? I asked myself. Already he is showing him that he must be superior to all others. He must fly a larger kite. He must put the others in the shade.
It was how the Baron had been brought up. He would try to turn my beautiful child into another such as himself.
I heard him say: “Here you are. You hold it. Grip it firmly. Don’t let go. Can you?”
“Of course,” said Kendal.
“Of course,” he repeated.
“I am now going to have a word with your Mamma.”
He sat beside me. Instinctively I moved away. He noticed and laughed.
“What a boy!” he said.
I did not answer.
“He looks just like my grandfather. I have a portrait of him at the boy’s age. The likeness is amazing.”
I said slowly: “This boy is my boy. He is never going to be like those Norse barons who rode roughshod over everyone who stood in their way.”
“There is a sweetness in him,” he went on, ‘inherited from his maternal relations, I don’t doubt. But he’ll be a fighter. “
“I don’t think there is any need to discuss him with you. If you will let me know the cost of the kite …”
“That was my gift to him.”
“I don’t really care for him to take gifts from strangers.”
“Not from his own father!”
I turned to him sharply.
“What are you planning?”
“I merely made a comment. I am his father and I shall give him a kite if I want to… or anything else for that matter.”
“I am his mother. I have brought him into this world and cared for him ever since. It is not for you to come along now because you like the look of him and claim to be his father. How can you be sure that you are.”
He looked at me sardonically.
“You are a woman of impeccable morals, I am sure. Everything fits. One only has to look at him.”
“Lots of children look alike.”
“Not so like. Besides, I knew him at once as soon as I saw him. I said to myself: That is my son.”
“You have no claim on him.”
“Don’t let him see that you are afraid of me. That might arouse his resentment against me. I have heard from him what a beautiful, clever mother he has. I have also heard talk of you. You justified my belief in you. The famous Kate Collison … beautiful … young … aloof … a little mysterious … living almost like a nun, they say.”
“Where did you get this information?”
“You live in the limelight, dear Kate. One cannot help but bear these things. I said to myself: There has been no one else in Kate’s life. I was the one. I remain the one.”
“I see your opinion of yourself has not changed.”
“As a matter of fact, I’ll tell you this, Kate. I am not a very happy man.”
“How is that? Surely you can juggle with circumstances and give yourself what you want?”
“It’s not easy.”
“You have indeed changed. I thought you were omnipotent.”
“Not quite, alas.”
“Surely you are not content with being ” not quite”?”
“Listen, Kate, don’t let’s waste time like this. I have thought of you often.”
“I suppose that is meant to be flattering.”
“It’s the truth. That was a wonderful time for me.”
“It was hardly that for me.”
“It was, Kate. If you are truthful with yourself you will admit you loved it … every minute. Come, you know you did.”
“I hated it. I hated you. It ruined …”
“Your life? No.
Look for yourself. Out of it came that beautiful boy.
You wouldn’t change that, would you? “
“I have my boy and I am going to keep him.”
“You wouldn’t have him any different, would you … not in one little way?”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“There you are. He had to be part mine to make him as he is. You might have married Bertrand. I saved you from that. | I was surprised when he didn’t go ahead. I told him to, but | he defied me. He lost a great deal. He is a very poor man now. a He married hoping his wife would bring him something. She did a little … not as much as he hoped though.”
“Did you have a hand in that?”
“He had to learn he could not defy me. Oh, you would have been so bored with him. Such a milk and water gentleman. It would have lasted with you, Kate. It would have ruined your career. Madame de Mortemer.
No, I don’t see you as that. Instead here you are, glorious Kate Collison, sought after but unattainable, the great artist, and the mother of the most delightful boy in France. Tell me, does he paint? ”
“What is it to you?”
“A great deal.”
“I refuse to answer.”
“Oh Kate … the same Kate. It take me back so. I should never have let you go. You see I can make mistakes.”
“That’s an extraordinary admission. Yes, you have indeed changed. It surprises me very much to hear you admit defeat.”
“I hope you will take pity on me.”
“I don’t believe a word you say, you know. I never shall.”
“Oh, you admit we shall have other opportunities for disagreeing. That implies a continuation of our relationship which I very much desire.”
“I think I should be going.”
“You can’t bring down the oriflamme yet … unless you would like me to take charge of the boy.”
“That I will never allow.”
“I thought not,” he said.
“Why have you come here?” I asked.
“To see the boy.”
“To ingratiate yourself with him.”
“I want his friendship.”
“It is not for you.”
“Shame, Kate. His own father!”
“I heard you have a son of your own … a legitimate one.”
His face hardened.
“I have no son,” he said.
The Demon Lover Page 23
