by Dix, Isabel
`Then I shall have you shown to your room, mademoiselle.' A jewelled hand went out to press a concealed button under the table-and the unfriendly features were impassive again. `If there is anything you want then please ask one of the maids.'
`Oh please,' impulsively Kate leaned forward to smile at the other woman, 'can't you call me Kate? After all, as we're to be so closely related . .
`When you are my son's wife, then we shall adopt a more familiar form of address.' Again there was a flicker of satisfaction on Madame Savoney-Morlet's face. 'Until then . . . In France at least we prefer to adhere to the formalities.'
`Of course.' The reproof and the condescending manner she adopted brought the shaming colour flooding into Kate's cheeks and she sat with her head bowed, her fingers fumbling with her handbag until she heard the door behind her open and the maid, summoned by the bell, come inside. She heard the rapid conversation and knew that orders were being given about the guest being taken to her bedroom. Kate stood up, a great weariness making her legs feel weak and sluggish.
`And Antoine . . .?' Miserably she looked at the woman, willing her to relax just a little. 'Is there no chance of seeing him this evening, madame?'
No.' There was the merest hint of a thaw in the woman's manner. 'No, it is not usual. Besides, as you know, at the moment he is away from home attending to an important business matter. It is a pity . . .' she shrugged, . . but this evening at dinner you will meet my stepdaughter and a few friends, so we shall at least have some company. Besides, you have not long to wait till the wedding. Do not concern yourself, mademoiselle.' The mouth smiled, the brilliant eyes were blatantly mocking. 'Assuredly Antoine Charles will be waiting for you when you reach the altar tomorrow.'
As she followed the maid across the wide lofty hall, Kate had the impression that somehow time had moved more slowly in this part of Europe than in the places she knew. The château, although splendid enough to satisfy the most exacting historian, was scarcely a home, with its crumbling stone walls, and there was no sign of anything having been acquired, even in the name of comfort, for the last hundred years.
Even the maid, with her black dress and stockings, the dated frilly white cap and apron, looked as if she
had escaped from some musical comedy of the thirties —although the severe expression surely would have made her unsuitable for any part in such a show.
For the first time Kate wondered if it was in fact such a romantic thing to live in a château. The word had always conjured up a more inviting elegant picture than the English equivalent, and she had never yearned to live in a castle. And yet this enormous crumbly place with its long stone corridors and high ceilings, the coldness of the black and white marble, was unlike anything she had imagined. The sundrenched warmth was missing, she decided with a spasm of homesickness for the sunny warm city she had left, the warm courtyards buzzing with heat-mazed insects...
Her musings were brought to an abrupt end when the maid stopped at the end of the endless corridor and threw open a heavy wooden door, standing aside so that Kate could go ahead.
`Thank you.' For a moment she stood just inside the door, looking round the melancholy room, then she turned, some query hovering on her lips as she tried to find the right words. But the door closed with a firm click.
The room was large and on the high vaulted ceiling biblical scenes were painted, the kind that might have been suitable in a church or concert hall but which Kate knew she would not enjoy lying in bed looking at. Not that such a thing would be possible, she decided, for once she was ensconced in the enormous bed, the side-curtains and hangings would exclude almost everything else. She wondered if she and Antoine would have to share this room, this bed, when they were married. And would their lovemaking be inhibited by
the knowledge that the Angel Gabriel and his friends were spying on them? She shivered, and then laughed at her fanciful imagination.
The walls of the room had been covered with silk which once had been green but which now had lost all their original colour. The curtains and drapes were of a heavy dull green material and the furniture was dark and massive.
With a sigh Kate wandered across to the window and looked out at the lowering clouds and the sad dripping rain. Even the weather seemed determined to make what ought to have been the most exciting time of her life gloomy and forbidding. She felt an urge which she had experienced downstairs, a longing to have her mother with her, for the utter conventionality of a normal wedding in England with her friends and relatives about her.
The words of her flatmate came back to her, words that had annoyed Kate when Hilary first expressed them.
`Are you sure you're doing the right thing, Kate? To me it wouldn't seem like a wedding without my family around me.'
`But can't you understand, Hilary, that's exactly what I love about it. I always swore I'd have a different sort of Wedding, you know that.'
`Well, I only hope . . .' Hilary had been annoyingly doubtful. 'After all, you don't know Antoine so very well, do you?'
`Well enough to know that he's the only man I could ever marry.' There was a flush of anger on Kate's cheeks. 'Oh, and,' she gave a little laugh, determined not to let Hilary know how wounding her words had
been, 'if you're worrying about being done out of a wedding, then stop. After we've been to Greece for our honeymoon, Antoine says we're going to have a huge party at the Savoy, and of course you'll be one of the most important guests. By that time Mum and Andrew should be back to civilisation.'
`I expect your mother will go berserk. I know mine would.' Hilary spoke with the smugness of a girl whose mother still sent a parcel of food regularly from Yorkshire in case her daughter wasn't eating enough.
`My mother has always trusted me.' Even as she spoke Kate wondered if that were really true. Or was it simply that she was more interested in her new husband than the daughter she had had for twenty years? And had Kate herself a dubious motive for embracing the hasty wedding plans with such enthusiasm? Was she perhaps trying to repay the hurt she had suffered six months ago when the cable had come from New York?
`Andrew and I married this morning,' it had read. `Lyrically happy. Writing soon. Love, Mother.'
And then a week later had come the airmail letter, full of crinkly white paper covered with writing in large round characters.
`So you'll understand, darling,' the letter had ended, `it was all so much of a hurry. Andrew couldn't afford to miss the chance of this trip to Ecuador and wanted me to go with him. That meant getting married so as not to shock the faculty. We'll be away eight months, and then you're to come and stay as long as you like.'
Kate had tried to hide her feelings under a thin covering of bitter amusement. The thought of her mother, who loved cities, scented baths and good food,
spending months on an archaeological dig somewhere in the wilds of South America! Yes, amusement was a very sound defence against the hurt. And now, surely her mother could hardly complain when she had done the very same thing. And after all, Kate didn't even have an address where she could be easily contacted. `In any case,' she assured Hilary as much as herself, `you must admit that Antoine is the kind of man that most mothers dream about—good-looking, rich and with a château,' she finished with an attempt at humour.
Hilary sounded so doubtful that the only conclusion Kate could draw was that her friend was just a little bit jealous. 'Yes, well, there are châteaux and châteaux,' she said cryptically.
Kate gave a weak little smile as she turned from the window and towards the green sub-aqueous gloom of her bedroom. At least there was no doubt about the château, it was the only word that could be used with such a place. Those huge metal gates, the crest picked out in gold and two savage snarling stone greyhounds guarding the entrance from the tops of the pillars belonged to no ordinary residence. But, she gave a shuddering little sigh, she would have given anything to find herself in one of those pleasant little villas which they had passed on the way from the airport.
The dining room to which they were guided when the meal was announced was no more welcoming than
the rest of the place, and Kate wondered if there was something special about the house which defied all attempts to lighten it. For this room, which at first gave the impression of over-illumination with six-branched candelabra marching down the length of the long highly polished table while overhead a crystal chandelier hung with dozens of glowing bulbs, in fact seemed to have an inherited gloom. In spite of the mirror-lined walls where the lights were reflected time and again, to Kate's slightly feverish imagination there was something shadowy, slightly sinister about the
room.
Perhaps it was the people, thought Kate, taking her place on the left of Madame Savoney-Morlet at the top of the table, for men and women alike were dressed in lugubrious black. Only her own dress in sapphire blue chiffon brought a glow of colour to the gathering, and Madame's look of disapproval when Kate came downstairs had indicated clearly enough her feelings on the matter. It would have been hopeless for Kate to explain that she had chosen the dress because it was Antoine's favourite and that even at this last minute she was hoping he would sweep into the room, bend low over her chair and kiss her cheek—in front of all of them, assuring them all that this was the girl he was going to marry in the morning. And assuring Kate herself.
And then later, when they had the opportunity to be alone for a moment, he would whisper that the colour still matched her eyes as it had done in London. And when he took her to her room he would whisper, Bonsoir, in an impatient lover's tone, remind her that this time tomorrow they would be in their Paris hotel with weeks of love on a Greek island ahead of them.
Tears stung her eyes when she realised how futile it was to expect him to come tonight, but she blinked furiously when she realised that Madame was speaking to her.
`I'm so sorry, mademoiselle, that none of our guests speak English.' Her eyes travelled with complacency over the four submissive guests before her gaze briefly returned to the dazzling face of the girl by her side. 'We are such a remote little community. You must make do with myself and Bernice.' She laughed briefly, harshly, and Kate looking quickly round the table saw the guests smile nervously, with no sign of understanding.
`That is all right, madame.' She was grateful for the sympathetic smile of Antoine's half-sister who sat opposite. 'I hope to learn the language quickly so that I shall be able to fit in with the family. I did begin lessons after Antoine left, but life was slightly hectic and I didn't make as much progress as I intended. It's a pity that at school I learned Spanish when French would have been so much more sensible.'
`You will 'learn quickly enough.' Bernice smiled in her shy nervous way with a brief apologetic glance at her stepmother. 'When you have to use it for shopping and running your household and . .
`Oui.' Madame concluded the conversation by pushing her chair back firmly and murmuring a few words which the guests clearly understood as an invitation to return to the salon where coffee would be served, and there they sat in chairs pulled round to the window through which they could look out on a small enclosed courtyard. The rain had stopped and a faint haze hung low over the ground as if at last it was beginning to dry out.
`There.' Madame Savoney-Morlet turned to Kate, pointing to the glass with the cheroot she was smoking through a long tortoiseshell holder. 'There we shall have the wedding repast tomorrow.' Her laugh was devoid of amusement, showing large, slightly yellow teeth. 'The long tables and chairs are all ready in the passages next to the kitchen. All we must wish for is a fine day.'
`Yes.' Kate looked out on the dreary scene, trying to feel pleased that the rain had stopped. 'But what if it isn't a fine day?'
`Fib, if it rains.' Again that mysterious complacent look flitted over the woman's face. 'If it rains then you will be all the more anxious to go off on your wedding journey.' The dark eyes noticed the blush as it spread across the girl's cheeks and she laughed, saying something in rapid French that made her obedient guests join in her amusement.
Soon the visitors, perhaps interpreting a signal from their hostess, declared that they must go, and after much bowing and thanks to Madame for the great honour she had shown in inviting them to the chateau, they were shown out by the maid. Madame followed them into the hall and from there the noise of their departure echoed back into the salon, Madame's strong tones dominating the conversation. Bernice and Kate were left alone for a few moments and the older girl leaned forward with a friendly expression. She was a plain middle-aged woman who gave every sign of being completely under the thumb of her stepmother.
`I am so happy you are joining our family' Her accent was more difficult to follow than her mother's, her command of English less. 'I think Antoine Charles
is indeed fortunate.'
Kate's heart warmed. 'Thank you, Bernice.' She smiled, suddenly radiant at the thought of being married to Antoine tomorrow. 'You all call him Antoine Charles . . .?'
`Ah, that is to distinguish one from the other.' As she spoke the strident tones of Madame Savoney-Morlet could be heard approaching and she came into the room in time to hear the last part of what Bernice had been saying. Suspiciously she looked from one to the other before releasing a torrent of questions at her stepdaughter, clearly demanding an explanation of their brief discussion. Her eyebrows came together in a sudden frown.
`Oui. But now, mademoiselle, you will come upstairs and I will show you the wedding veil.'
`But . . .' Kate shook her head in silent protest, 'I'm not wearing a veil. It's just a simple dress. And I decided to wear a hat with it, a floppy picture hat. It's in that large round box and there are flowers to one side.' She smiled at her own confusion, looking in vain for a response in the face of the woman opposite. 'The flowers are on the hat, not the box and .. .' The words trailed away as Madame shook her head emphatically.
`That will not do. Come.' She strode towards the door with her emphatic manner.
Kate looked appealingly at Bernice, who only shrugged slightly, then shook her head deprecatingly. So she had no choice but to follow the older woman across the hall and up the shallow curved staircase where all the ancestors of the family looked down on them.
`You will see, mademoiselle,' the thin claw-like hand
was waved in the direction of a portrait which hung in a dimly-lighted alcove, 'all the Savoney-Morlet brides have worn the family veil.' Kate looked at the pale features of the young woman dressed in Edwardian fashion, then at another earlier portrait, as they turned on to the main corridor. Both brides were wearing, thrown back from their faces, the family heirloom referred to, a fine silk veil, richly embroidered with elaborate panels of flowers and birds and held on top of the head with a high coronet of pearls.
It would, thought Kate, quite spoil the simple lines of the lovely dress which Kulu had made specially for her, and her first instinct was to refuse quietly but firmly to conform to the tradition. This instinct was reinforced when she saw that the veil which had been laid out on the bed in her room had yellowed with age and would look dowdy, dirty even against the sheer white of her dress. But when Madame seemed to expect no resistance Kate gave a metaphoric little shrug of her shoulders. In the interests of family tranquillity it was a small enough price to pay. If she could soften her motherin-law's harsh attitude towards her then she would give in and wear the veil. But, and she was to learn this only when it was too late, in a dimly lit ancient church such a voluminous, heavily embroidered veil could make a very effective screen.
It was strange next day driving in the same limousine which had collected her from the airport, the same withdrawn chauffeur at the wheel and with Madame Savoney-Morlet by her side. Madame who wa
s to give her away, who would so dearly like to do exactly that but who instead was obliged to receive her into the family Strange . . . Kate bit her lip fiercely and turned
away, looking out at the dullness of the dry day.
At the end of this ordeal would be Antoine. Antoine. Her anguish disappeared as she thought of his arms about her, his mouth on hers. Antoine. Soon she would feel her hand enclosed in his and she would know that she was safe.
`Come, mademoiselle.' The firm, not-to-be-questioned voice cut into her reverie and the severe features did not soften as Kate turned appealing eyes to her. At the same time the car came to a halt at the bottom of a flight of steps and following them Kate saw the small church at the top of an eminence.
She counted twenty as she climbed, Madame Savoney-Morlet's firm grasp on her elbow allowing her to devote her attention to keeping the hem of her dress clear of the steps. Couldn't they, she wondered mutinously, couldn't they, one of the servants, have swept the steps for their wedding day? At the top they paused and Madame actually smiled as she reached up to pull the heavy folds of the veil about the girl's face.
`Antoine Charles will have a very beautiful bride.' And she turned, offering her arm to Kate, then led her into the church.
The old priest dressed in vestments all white and rich with cold smiled and nodded his way through the service, and Kate was moved, entranced by all its beautiful strangeness. The heavy scent of arum lilies in the tall crystal altar vases mingled with the incense dispensed through the small circular church from the swinging censer. It was the exotic, the unusual wedding her romantic imagination had always craved, here in this tiny private chapel of a French château, without a single guest whom she knew. What could be more un-
usual or romantic ! All her doubts were swept away as if they had never existed.
