The Heiress
Also by Evelyn Anthony
Anne Boleyn
Charles the King
Clandara
Curse Not the King
Elizabeth
Imperial Highness
Victoria
One
‘My hand, I think!’
The Marquis de Charlot threw his cards down on the table and looked in triumph at the man sitting opposite to him. The game had begun in noisy banter, but as it progressed and the Marquis’s winnings mounted, silence grew between the players and the spectators, because the Marquis was a rich man and his opponent could not afford to lose as he had been doing. Everyone gambled at Versailles, following the example of the King Louis XV and his mistress Madame Dubarry, and it was nothing for men to be ruined after a night’s play. But it was quite another thing to take ten thousand louis from a man like Charles Macdonald. De Charlot had been drinking heavily, and the wine had made him reckless. He leant across the table and tapped his cards.
‘You owe me ten thousand louis, Monsieur,’ he said.
The young man sitting opposite to him sipped his wine before answering. His expression was rather bored, but the pale green eyes glinted dangerously.
‘So it seems,’ he said. ‘It’s been a good night’s play, my dear Marquis. I congratulate you.’
‘I warned you to stop two hours ago.’ The Vicomte de Renouille was one of the few friends that Charles Macdonald had at Versailles, principally because he was too stupid and good-natured to quarrel with him. He tapped Charles’s shoulder. ‘Never go on when the luck’s against you,’ he said. Macdonald brushed his hand away.
‘Be a good fellow and keep your opinions to yourself,’ he said softly. Ten thousand louis. He did not possess a quarter of that sum. He looked into the flushed face of de Charlot and smiled, a slow, lazy smile that made his thin, handsome face look strangely cat-like. The smile did not reach his eyes.
‘I congratulate you,’ he said. ‘But you appreciate that you will have to wait—’
‘Wait! Are you saying that you can’t pay?’ the Marquis demanded. He stood up and the table rocked.
‘Steady,’ Charles Macdonald said. ‘You’ll knock the table over. I knew fortune favoured fools, but it’s the first time I’ve seen her smile on a drunkard too.’
‘Ah,’ de Charlot sneered, ‘I know what you’re about, Monsieur. You’re hoping to provoke me so you won’t have to pay. But not this time, my friend. We played fair and you lost. I want my winnings!’
‘And I’ve told you, you’ll have to wait. I’ll pay in due course. That will have to satisfy you.’
‘You’ll pay within three days at the latest,’ de Charlot shouted, and now both men were standing, glaring at each other. ‘I know your reputation, Monsieur. You run up debts and then kill the man you owe them to—but you won’t play your tricks with me. I’ll go to the King; my father’s well in favour, you know. He’ll have a word in His Majesty’s ear about these Scottish exiles who live at Court, and how they could do with a lesson …’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Charles asked him quietly. ‘Be careful, I warn you.’
‘And I warn you,’ de Charlot said. ‘You’ll pay this debt within three days or by God I’ll use my influence to have you sent to the Bastille until it’s settled.’
‘Make one complaint against me to anyone outside this room,’ Charles Macdonald said, ‘and I promise you I’ll kill you. As I think of it, I’ll kill you if you dare even mention the matter again! Is that clear, Monsieur? Annoy me and I’ll cut your throat!’
The Comte stared at him and his flushed face began to turn pale. He addressed himself to the others in the room.
‘Gentlemen! I call on you to witness this: Monsieur Macdonald owes me ten thousand louis. He has refused to pay and threatened to murder me! By God,’ he spat at Charles, ‘by God you’ll hear more of this!’
He pushed his way past them and went out; some of his steadiness deserted him and he stumbled at the door. De Renouille turned to Charles. ‘You shouldn’t have threatened him,’ he said. ‘He’s a vindictive swine and a coward as well, but his family’s got the King’s ear. He’ll have you arrested if you don’t produce the money. I only wish I could oblige you, my dear friend, but my own debts are as much as I can manage.… Is there anywhere you can borrow?’
Charles looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is, but I’m damned if I’ll ask them.’ He bowed to the captain of cavalry who was the last spectator left, and he and de Renouille began the long walk down the corridors of Versailles Palace towards their quarters. These quarters, in common with most of the space available in the enormous Palace, were no better than a corner in some attic; among the most privileged in the thronging Court were Charles’s own parents, Sir James and Lady Katharine Macdonald of Dundrenan, who actually enjoyed the privacy of one small room. The Marquis de Charlot’s jibe about the Scottish exiles was true indeed of most of the families living in France nearly thirty years after the last Highland rising for Bonnie Prince Charlie. Many were mercenaries and adventurers, living on their wits and on the charity of any rich nobleman who could be persuaded to take an interest in them. But the Macdonalds had found favour with the mean and capricious Louis XV; Sir James had fought in the armies of France and distinguished himself in the Seven Years War against England, and his wife had treated Madame Dubarry with courtesy in the days when she was no more than a new recruit to the King’s collection of casual mistresses and no one imagined her sway would last more than a few weeks. That mistake cost many their fortunes and their favour at Court; there was no more powerful person in the whole of France than the vulgar little courtesan who was Queen in all but name.
‘What are you going to do?’ de Renouille asked Charles.
‘Wait,’ was the answer. ‘I’ll certainly kill him if he goes sniffing round the King. As for the money—I’ll come by it somehow. Don’t concern yourself, my friend; I’ll survive this little awkwardness.’
‘Why not go to your parents?’ de Renouille asked. ‘Surely in this case you can forget your pride.… The Bastille is a damned uncomfortable place. And damned difficult to get out of once you’re inside.’
‘I’ve never asked my parents for anything,’ Charles retorted. ‘And I’ll see myself in hell before I do. They’ve paid debts for me before, but never because I asked their help or wanted it. They can’t have me jeopardizing their position. They’ve told me so over and over again. And I’ve told them, let me settle my own affairs in my own way.’
‘You came very close when you killed that fellow Augustin last year. Your parents are right, Charles. If you fight de Charlot and kill him, even your family won’t survive the scandal.’
‘Oh yes, they will.’ He paused and looked at the Vicomte, and laughed mockingly.
‘They’ll survive anything, even having me as their only son. But I must admit it’s tried them. By God, it’s really tried them to the limit! Good night, my dear fellow. I see my miserable hole in the wall is near.’
‘Good night.’ De Renouille hesitated awkwardly. They enjoyed a spasmodic friendship, of which the feeling was all on the younger, slower man’s side, for the ruthless, reckless Scot of whom he was even a little afraid in his heart. He tried once more.
‘You’re sure you won’t reconsider?… You won’t go to your father?’
‘I won’t,’ Charles said softly. ‘And unless you want a sudden end to our association, my dear Vicomte, you won’t refer to it again. Good night!’
Charles Macdonald slept soundly that night, far less troubled in mind than the Marquis de Charlot, who woke sweating after a nightmare in which he had met the Macdonald coming at him with a drawn sword. Charles’s reputation as a duellist was only equalled by his prowess as a seducer. He was generally disliked by men, who treated him with caution, and pursued by women, all of whom imagined themselves capable of arousing his love, and not one of whom had survived the encounter without suffering pain and humiliation in the end. His enemies said that he hated women; a very few observers of the microcosm of Court life said that it was because his mother hated him.
Twenty-four hours after the game ended in the little card-room the story of de Charlot’s threat was all over the Palace, and by the end of the day Charles received a message to go to his parents’ apartment immediately.
‘Monsiuer le Chevalier, your son!’ Sir James Macdonald of Dundrenan, Chevalier of France and assistant to the Minister of War, took his wife’s hand in his and pressed it gently. He looked up at her, into the lovely face which had changed so little after nearly thirty years of marriage, and said quietly: ‘Try to be patient with him, Katharine. He’ll agree.’
‘I don’t want to speak to him at all; this last episode is too much to forgive!’
‘Remember,’ her husband said, ‘we have an object in view!’ He turned to the lackey.
‘Admit Monsieur Charles.’
Their only son had been waiting in the ante-room for nearly twenty minutes while his parents discussed his latest indiscretion. They were used to women; he could remember the disgust and anger on his mother’s face when she discovered that two of her little chambermaids were pregnant by him at the same time, and he was only just sixteen himself. He had accepted her reproaches in the same mood in which he waited for them now: bored, impenitent and mocking.
He took out his watch and swore. Twenty minutes; it was his mother, of course, who kept him waiting as if he were a lackey. It was just another way of showing how she hated him. It almost made him laugh when he thought of how angry she would be when she knew the exact amount of money that he owed de Charlot.… They had paid his debts before, grudgingly and angrily comparing his extravagance with the probity of other people’s sons, and he had taken their help and shrugged off their reproaches. He had never asked for money, it was always his father who stepped in and paid his losses rather than let Charles settle the debt by picking a quarrel with his creditor and risking his life in a duel. They were still exiles, dependent upon the favour of the French monarch for their existence; they could not afford the scandal of their reprobate son killing some high-born gambling companion whose family would complain to the King.
‘Monsieur Charles, will you go in please, Monsieur and Madame will see you now.’
Charles walked past the servant without looking at him; he never looked at servants; even when he kicked his own valet for some fault, he hardly bothered to glance at him.
‘My dear father; Madame my mother.’ He bowed low to both his parents. They were standing side by side and, as usual, his mother was holding his father’s arm. Their fidelity to each other bored their son; he was only more bored by people who asked him if the story of their escape and marriage were really true … Had all members of his mother’s family perished in the attack the Macdonalds led upon their castle and had his father actually come on her with a drawn sword and then eloped with her instead?…
Dear God, he thought, how smug and virtuous they were. He met his mother’s eye, that blue cold eye which had never once looked on him with maternal feeling. He rather admired her for that. Whatever she was, his mother was no fool. It was his father who spoke to him.
‘I suppose you know why we’ve sent for you?’
‘I can guess. You’ve heard the rumours about that miserable de Charlot and myself, and not unnaturally you want to know how much?’
Sir James’s very dark eyes narrowed angrily.
‘No, my son,’ he said. ‘We know how much you owe the Marquis de Charlot. I have spoken to him. He also informed me today that you had refused to pay him. Is that correct?’
‘It is,’ Charles answered coolly. ‘Since I had no money to my credit, and other—er—rather pressing bills, I couldn’t do anything else. I did ask him to wait, though.’
‘Not according to Monsieur de Charlot,’ his father cut in. ‘I understood from him that you had threatened to kill him if he pressed you for the money. He came to me in some alarm.’
Charles laughed. ‘The miserable little cur! I daresay he was alarmed when he was sober. I told him if he pestered me for a few paltry thousands I’d take him out and cut his throat!’ There was no grin on his face now; his father appreciated only too well why the Marquis de Charlot had sought him out, stuttering with fright and indignation, and ended the interview by repeating his threat to complain to the King.
‘Did he tell you how much I owed him?’
‘Ten thousand louis!’ Lady Katharine spoke for the first time. ‘Ten thousand louis lost in a night at faro. Do you know how much your father and I possessed to live on in our first years here? Less than half that! And when you lose it you behave like some common cut-throat and threaten the man. James, tell him what we’ve decided and let’s get the business over before I lose my temper with him.’
‘My dear mother,’ Charles said calmly, ‘you are always losing your temper with me. If you don’t tonight I shall be quite disappointed. I played cards, I lost the money. I also lost my temper as a result of being dunned. Other nights I usually win, but no one mentions that. Did he also tell you he was going to the King?’
‘He did,’ Katharine retorted. ‘That’s why we sent for you. Six months ago your father and I swore we’d never pay another gambling loss for you whatever the consequences. But things have changed since then. James, you tell him.’
She turned away and walked to the other end of the room. She was so agitated that she couldn’t trust herself. Her son, the child of their consuming love, the result of a passion which had survived the hazards of war, of clan feuds, even of murder itself, and still bound them indivisibly after twenty-seven years; their son, and now their heir to the impounded estates in the Highlands, seemed to be the reincarnation of one of the most evil men that she had ever known, the cruel and pitiless Hugh Macdonald who had killed her own brother and once tried to murder her. Her joy at his birth had changed to loathing when she saw the resemblance in the child she held in her arms. All she had hoped for was a son to reflect the qualities of the man she loved; instead of that the boy was like a changeling. There was no sign of his father’s honour, only his uncle’s pride; none of James’s splendid courage, only the fierce love of fighting for its own sake. In her eyes the boy was callous and defiant and the man had become a heartless profligate.
He gambled, he fought, he seduced without mercy or moral considerations of any kind; at the age of nineteen he had killed three men in duels over women and cards, and one unhappy creature who had allowed herself to be involved with him committed suicide when he told her to go back to the husband who had turned her out.
Thank God, Katharine thought, thank God we have Jeanne. They both loved their daughter, happily married to a gentle, scholarly French nobleman and the mother of three small children. Thank God, she thought again, that we have Jeanne.
‘As your mother said,’ Sir James began, ‘we told you last time we would never settle another debt for you. As far as we are concerned, de Charlot could go to the King and you could learn a very salutary lesson in the Bastille for a while. I wouldn’t lift a hand to interfere except for just one thing. The English Government have agreed to restore our estates in Scotland. Not to me, unfortunately, they’ve got long memories; but to you, my son.’
‘Really?’ The light eyes gleamed, and then he half closed them as if he were a little bored; it was a trick which had once brought his father’s hand down on the side of his head with such force that he sprawled on the floor. He had been a youth then; not even James would dare to strike him now.
‘You mean that I am the heir to Dundrenan and Clandara?’
‘You are, or at least you will be as soon as I accept the terms and surrender my own claims and your mother’s. You are the future chief of the Macdonalds of Dundrenan and the closest blood heir of the Frasers of Clandara. You can bring the two clans together and give them the leadership they’ve lacked for twenty-seven years. That means more to me than your miserable debts; that’s why I shan’t let de Charlot go to the King and accuse you, and your mother feels the same.’
‘I’m very grateful,’ Charles said. ‘I can’t see myself as a chief in the Highlands, but if the lands are good and the property … I daresay I’ll pay a visit and see what can be done with it.’
‘There’s a condition.’ Katharine came back and put her arm around her husband. ‘No debt will be paid and no inheritance accepted otherwise, Charles. Refuse, and you can take your debts and your difficulties out of this room and never enter it again.’
‘What is the condition?’ Charles asked softly.
His father answered. ‘That you marry your cousin Anne de Bernard, and settle down to a reasonable life. And that a year after the marriage you undertake to live at least six months of every year in the Highlands and have your sons educated and brought up there as befits Macdonalds. Believe me, your mother and I will not allow our peoples to be cheated. Do this, and your debt will be paid by tomorrow. Refuse, and I feel certain that de Charlot and his family will persuade the King to throw you into prison until it is. It’s up to you.’
‘How much time have?’ he asked them. He was adept at hiding his feelings; no flicker of emotion crossed the handsome face; he looked as bored and unconcerned as ever, and they would never know the fierce excitement which was growing in him. Inherit Clandara and Dundrenan. All his life those two names of places he had never seen had held a magic for him which came from the blood in his veins, from centuries of ancient breeding. He was Scots to his marrow, but exiled, rootless, with nothing but names and old traditions to feed upon and give him background in a foreign land. Though he had been born there, Charles had never instinctively accepted France as his home, and he had never known if the interedict on the families of those who had taken part in the last Stuart rebellion would ever be lifted by the Government of England, to let him and those like him see the country of their forefathers. And now it had come. He could go back to the Highlands, walk on the purple moors, feel in his face the cold clean mountain winds of which he’d heard his parents talk so wistfully. He was not condemned for ever to a useless exile, or to the service of France. He was being offered the chance to leave it all, to answer the restless call of his blood for freedom and meaning in the ravaged lands of his own country, among the scattered oppressed peoples of his race. He would have died before he gave his father or his mother the satisfaction of seeing that what they had told him meant anything to him at all. As for their condition … Marry. Marry Anne de Bernard. He could hardly remember her, it was years since they had met. His mind flashed ahead; he would need a wife and a rich one if he were really going back. He would need as much money as he could lay hands on if he were going to restore his lands and people to their old condition.
‘You have no time at all,’ his father answered the question. ‘You decide now.’
Charles smiled his mocking smile at both of them.
‘Marry my rich little cousin and inherit eighty thousand acres and two chieftainships—or else go to prison. My dear father and Madame, my mother, I don’t see much alternative, do you? I accept your conditions, unconditionally. Now if you’ll excuse me I have an appointment and I’m already late.’
‘I can imagine with whom,’ Katharine answered. ‘Of all the women at Versailles you have to choose the most vicious and depraved. That will stop too, after you are married.’
He did not answer her, but she saw the mocking defiance in his face, and she could not pretend that it was not a very handsome face. Even if he had been ugly he would still have possessed the same dangerous charm.
‘You will settle the debt?’ He addressed his father, and Sir James nodded.
‘By tomorrow, I told you. I am going to ask the King’s permission for the marriage; it’s only a formality and we’ll announce it as soon as we’ve been down to Charantaise.’
He remembered the splendid Château; he used to go there as a child and stay with his mother’s relations, the de Bernards. There used to be a little Marquise, very talkative and overdressed, painted up like a little Parisian whore, with the mincing manners of an age that reflected the King’s last great mistress, Madame de Pompadour. The little Marquise, with her passion for scandal and mischief, was dead now, and only her daughter Anne and an old uncle who was her guardian remained. He hadn’t seen his cousin since she was a child and all he knew about her was that she was immensely rich. He bowed to his parents.
‘I wish you both good night. Excuse me; I know you wouldn’t want me to keep the lady waiting.’ As he went out of the room he laughed.
Katharine turned to her husband.
‘James, James, all I can think of is that poor child Anne. How can we marry her to him?… even for the sake of Dundrenan and Clandara—it’s twenty-seven years since the Rebellion; how do we know what state the clans are in or if there’s anyone left in the glens at all?’
‘The two houses are in ruins but our people are still there,’ he answered. ‘They need a leader; they need Anne de Bernard’s money to rebuild and replenish the land. She’ll fare well enough. How do you know marriage won’t change him … it changed me.’
‘My darling,’ she said gently, ‘if he were anything like you I’d love him with all my heart and she’d be the luckiest woman in the world to marry him. But there’s none of you in him, and none of me either. Only the very worst of both families—that’s all I see in him. You are determined on this marriage, aren’t you?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t ask me to change my mind because I can’t. I’m Scots to my bones in spite of living here. I must do what is best for my people.’
‘So be it, then,’ she said. ‘At least I can try and protect her from him when they’re married.’
‘When they’re married,’ James answered slowly, ‘we both can. Come, my darling, I’m going to seek an audience of the King.’
Louise de Vitale was a very beautiful woman even in a Court where beautiful women were in abundance and pretty women too numerous to be counted. At twenty-three she was a widow; her husband, the Baron de Vitale, was already an old man when she married him, and, having lived a life of excess, his constitution did not survive the strain of being married to his young and lovely wife for more than two years. When he died he left everything in his possession to the woman whom he described as the most perfect compagnon de nuit any man could wish for. By the time she was twenty Louise was rich, well connected and very bored with living in the country on her husband’s estates and carrying on intrigues with the husbands of her neighbours. She had exhausted them all during her year’s mourning and she left her estates in the hands of a bailiff and set out for Versailles. Almost at once she attracted the attention of the Duc de Richelieu; it was not only advisable but a pleasure for Louise to become his mistress. He was attractive and charming and he enjoyed intrigue as much as she did. Also he was an intimate of the King’s new mistress, the Comtesse Dubarry, and that opened the door to many things.
In a Court where everyone powdered, two women were conspicuous for wearing their hair naturally. One was the Royal mistress, whose hair was a ravishing golden-red, as fine as silk, and the other the Baroness de Vitale, whose beautiful hair was so dark that in some lights it seemed touched with blue. With this sable hair, her complexion was as pale and smooth as milk, and the skin on her body was of the same texture and colour as her face. Her eyes were very large and black with heavily painted lids above them, and a mouth which was full and red. She was beautiful and she dressed superbly, and she had been Charles Macdonald’s mistress for over a year. He was the first man to whom she had ever been faithful, and while she waited for him that night she was so restless that she walked up and down like an animal in a cage. She had a maid who had been in her service since she married, a sharp-eyed little Breton who shared all her secrets.
‘Don’t worry, Madame. Monsieur Charles will come.’
‘What time is it?’ Louise demanded. ‘He’s never as late as this!’
That was another oddity, Marie thought, taking out her watch. He often kept the Baroness waiting, whereas all the other gentlemen had been sitting outside her door an hour before. Marie did not like Charles Macdonald. He was a foreigner for all that he was born and bred in France; there was an arrogance about him, a brutality which she had seen in his quarrels with her mistress, that was definitely not French. Once he had come to the Baroness’s apartments drunk, and when she reproached him he struck her and dragged her into the bedroom and locked the door. When he left the next morning her mistress was more abjectly in love with him than ever. Marie had a lover of her own; he worked as a footman for the Duchesse de Gramont and together they were saving every sou to get married and open a small shop in Paris.
‘It is nearly eleven o’clock, Madame. Perhaps he isn’t coming this time?’
‘He would have sent a note, some word,’ her mistress said. ‘He’ll come, he’s been detained by something, that’s all it is.’ Louise went to the glass on the wall and examined herself in it. Charles was the only man she had ever met who made her unsure of her beauty; she stared at herself anxiously. Her dress was pale yellow and made of the soft thin silk which the Dubarry had brought into fashion; worn without panniers it clung to the body and it showed every line of her beautiful figure; her breasts were almost exposed; only a gauze fichu covered them. She was one of those rare women who looked as beautiful in déshabillé as she did in the most magnificent ball gown. Charles sometimes said that she was beautiful, but he had never said he loved her.
From the beginning of their relationship, when they met at a card party given by the Duc d’Aiguillon, who was at that time Dubarry’s lover and political protector, Louise decided that it was useless to expect him to behave like other men. She had begun the intrigue because he was attractive and at first he had paid her no attention. The moment he took her in his arms he established an absolute mastery of her; in bewilderment she submitted to a sexual domination she had never imagined could exist. Its power over her was such that as she waited for him she was trembling.
‘Madame,’ Marie whispered, ‘I hear him coming!’ Louise heard his voice, talking and laughing to another man as they walked down the corridor, and then the other set of steps went on, and the door opened and he came towards her.
‘Charles!’
She ran to him and for a moment he held her off, mocking her eagerness. Then he pulled her in and kissed her. After a moment he looked up at the maid.
‘Get out!’
Marie curtsied and vanished through the door in the wall; she slept in a small closet where she could hear the Baroness’s bell if she needed her. It wouldn’t ring tonight.
‘You’re so late,’ Louise whispered, avoiding his mouth for a moment. ‘I have supper prepared for you … Darling beloved, you’re tearing my dress … come and sit down for a moment.’
‘I don’t want supper and I’m not going to sit down. Come to bed, Louise; to hell with the dress. I’ll buy you another one!’
‘What with,’ she whispered. He picked her up and kicked open the bedroom door. A table was laid for supper in one corner of the room; there were candles and flowers and the bed was turned down. The rooms were very small and in the upper regions of an outer wing, far from the main Palace buildings. It took almost an hour to walk to the Grands apartements. But Louise was lucky to have secured them. ‘How can you buy me a new dress when you’re always in debt?’ She looked up at him from the bed. He had flung off his wig and stripped off his coat.
‘I’ll be a rich man soon. No more questions now!’
Louise held out her arms to him.
‘Silence me, then,’ she said.
Louis XV was sixty-one years old and he had been King of France for fifty-six years. Those who wished to see him privately knew that the quickest means of entry was through the rooms of Madame Dubarry, and the best way of ensuring a sympathetic audience was to talk to her first.
In spite of her reputation Sir James Macdonald found it impossible to dislike the King’s mistress. She was common and feather-headed; more than one disdainful nobleman and many haughty women had felt the sting of the Comtesse’s urchin sense of humour, but in a Court where morals were a scandal, and the inhumanities practised as a matter of course, the Dubarry was no more vicious than anyone else and far better natured than most. She injured nobody and tried to help many; her greatest wish was to be liked and accepted. Her extravagance and lewdity were part of the day-to-day life at Versailles, and those who wished for the King’s favour accepted both without comment. She was sitting in her boudoir when Sir James came in, looking exquisitely pretty in a loose gown of pale blue, sewed with pink and silver lovers’ knots, and a fortune in pink pearls shining on her neck and breast. Her famous hair was gathered up by more pink and silver bows and an enormous pink diamond winked and blazed out of the mass of curls. The Comtesse was ready for His Majesty; she had found a street-juggler in Paris and, being delighted by his tricks, she brought him to Versailles to perform before the King. A select group of Dubarry’s friends had been invited; after the juggler there was a singer and some musicians. The King was growing old so rapidly that it was necessary to stimulate him with songs and plays of such lasciviousness that even the Court was shocked. But the gay and pretty little courtesan knew better. She was no prude and they made her laugh. If they made the King affectionate and he wanted to sit and fondle her in public, and recapture some of his old vigour afterwards, why should a few sour faces grudge it to him.…
She gave her hand to Sir James to kiss and asked him at once what he wanted.
‘I know you want something, Monsieur, you have the look … I’ve been here long enough now to recognize it a mile off. What can I do for you—or what can the King do?’
‘Something very simple, Madame,’ he answered, and in spite of himself he smiled into the lovely, impudent little face. ‘Something very simple which won’t cost His Majesty a sou.’
‘By God, that’ll be a change!’ Dubarry giggled. ‘Everyone who comes in here has their hand out; it hardly leaves enough for me. How do you like my pearls, Monsieur? I’ve told your dear wife before that I really can’t pronounce your name; it’s quite impossible for a Parisienne. How is she, by the way? I wish she’d come and see me, but I know it’s no use inviting her to one of my evenings.…’
‘She’ll wait on you tomorrow,’ he promised.
Dubarry winked at him. ‘Very skilfully avoided, Monsieur. Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass her or you by inviting you to see my little play tomorrow. I think it’s so amusing I almost split my stays the first time I saw it.… Now, what is this favour that isn’t going to cost the King any money?’
‘His permission for the marriage of my son Charles.’
Dubarry glanced up at him and made a face.
‘I know of your son, Monsieur, and if you don’t mind my saying so, I don’t envy the bride, whoever she is. There’s a dear friend of mine who’s attached to him. I think she’s mad and I’ve told her so. But never mind, never mind. Go and wait in the ante-room; the King will be here in a minute. I’ll call for you as soon as he’s ready and before he sees my juggler. Don’t worry, he’ll give his permission. He adores to think of women being made to suffer. Poor little wretch. Until a little later, Monsieur.’
‘I knew the girl’s mother very well,’ the King said. ‘One of the biggest mischief-makers in France. From what I remember of Anne de Bernard she doesn’t resemble her mother in the least. Is she agreeable to this marriage?’
James nodded. ‘Her guardian assures me that she will follow his advice, Sire. If you consent to the match the engagement will be announced next month after my son’s return from Charantaise.’
‘She’s very rich,’ the old King said. His very black eyes looked past Sir James towards Madame Dubarry. She blew him a kiss, and for a moment the long, melancholy face softened and he smiled.
‘Very rich and well born; a quiet and modest creature, if I recall her properly.’ He frowned, trying to remember. ‘Ah yes, delightful, very pretty. Your son is lucky, Monsieur. Very well, your arguments about your estates have decided me. You have my permission. You may go, Monsieur Macdonald.’
As Sir James bowed, he saw Louis yawn and hold out his hand to the Dubarry. He hurried out of the second-floor apartments which were the official quarters of the mistress, and went back to tell his wife that now the marriage could take place. He was also in a hurry to arrange the payment of Charles’s debt.
‘There’s no need for you to marry this woman! Why didn’t you come to me? I would have mortgaged my estates, done anything—I would have found the money for you somehow!’
‘I told you,’ Charles said. ‘There’s more to it than the debt. I’m going to inherit my family’s lands in Scotland—I need a rich wife; besides, my dear Louise, by the time you gathered the money together de Charlot would have had me sent to the Bastille, and you know how easy it is to get out of there!’ He closed his eyes for a moment; he felt sleepy and relaxed and rather hungry. He wished that she would stop harassing him about his marriage. He reached out and brought her close beside him; he had only to touch her to feel his strength and his desire surging back. He kissed her shoulder and began to pull her down to him, caressing her; to his surprise she struck his hands away and sprang off the bed. He opened his eyes and looked at her and laughed.
‘You look very beautiful when you’re jealous. Jealous and naked; both suit you to perfection. Stop being such a damned fool, Louise! If you won’t make love with me, then at least give me some supper. I’m hungry now.’
‘You weren’t when you came in,’ she said. She covered herself with a long satin robe; her hands were shaking. Lying beside him, drowsing and whispering, he had suddenly told her that he was going to marry one of the richest young women in France. She hardly listened to his account of his interview with his parents, or the cynical way in which he spoke of the match itself. All Louise knew was that another woman would have a legal title to him, a woman she had never seen, a woman who was young and a great heiress.
‘How can you expect me to be anything but jealous?’ she demanded. She came over and began tying the laces of his shirt; her eyes were full of tears. ‘You know I love you more than anything in the world. Don’t do it, Charles, don’t, I beg of you! I’ll go to the Dubarry, she’ll help me, she’ll intercede with the King. He won’t listen to de Charlot. And I’ll find the ten thousand louis for you! You’ve no need to marry her!’
Charles took her hands away and finished fastening the shirt himself. He looked down at her with an expression she had seen once or twice before, a look of irritated boredom that frightened her more than his anger.
‘If you think that being your lover is more important to me than inheriting my rights in my own country then you’re a very stupid woman. Do you suppose I’m going to be an exile, living on French charity all my life, just because my mistress doesn’t want me to take a wife.…’
‘Don’t be angry with me,’ she said quickly. She turned away to arrange her hair before the dressing-table and control herself. One more tactless word and he would walk out of the room, perhaps never enter it again. She had often amused herself by teasing and provoking her lovers for the pleasure of seeing them come crawling back. Now it was her turn to abase herself, and she wanted him so much that she had long since lost all sense of shame. She pulled out the chair for him and without speaking he sat down in it and began to help himself to the cold meats and pastry dishes. She poured out two glasses of wine and sat opposite to him.
‘I won’t mention it again,’ she said softly. ‘You know what’s best.’
He put down his glass and smiled at her. ‘You’ve no reason to worry,’ he said. ‘She’s my cousin … nothing will change between us. She’ll learn to do what she’s told.’
The Château of Charantaise de La Haye had been built in the fifteenth century by the Sieur de Bernard, who designed it as a fortress in command of his vast lands. Little of the original building remained; his descendants, notably the fifth Marquis, rebuilt it on the scale of an elegant palace, inspired by the splendours being carried out by King Louis XIV in his Palace at Versailles. The beautiful stone building was set in a valley; behind the park of more than a hundred acres, including woods, formal gardens, fountain walks and a fine orangery, land stretched out as far as the eye could see. Every farm, every field of grain, every tree, stream and bush, and every living creature belonged to the Seigneur of Charantaise.
For the last twelve years the great estates had been owned by a woman. There were two hundred rooms in the. Château and one hundred and fifty indoor servants, excluding gardeners, grooms, messengers, woodsmen and gamekeepers. There was a banqueting hall with a ceiling painted by Vernit, a library containing over a thousand books and a magnificent private chapel. The woods were full of game, for the de Bernards were great hunters; unlike most of the nobility of the period, they preferred to live on their splendid estates and make only token appearances at Court. Apart from her formal presentation at Versailles, Anne de Bernard had stayed at Charantaise.
A group of horses raced across the green parkland, and the sound of a huntsman’s horn sang through the autumn air. Ahead of them a deer fled for its life, bounding over the ground pursued by a dozen hunting dogs in full cry. One horse galloped faster and jumped more recklessly than the rest and it was ridden by a woman in a green riding dress. As she had said to her uncle, Anne de Bernard saw no reason why she should miss an afternoon’s hunting even if her future husband was coming to Charantaise that day.
When the riders came back to the Château the light was beginning to fail; the deer had reached the shelter of the woods where the horses could not follow it and the hounds were called off, yelping and barking with disappointment. Their mistress stopped at the foot of the entrance stairs and patted them, laughing. She adored the excitement and the danger of the chase, but she was always glad when the quarry escaped after a good run. A footman came to take her gloves and whip; the enormous doors of the Château were opened wide and inside the marble entrance hall, with its palisades and statues, servants were carrying boxes up the staircase, and her own steward of the household came running down the steps to meet her.
‘Madame, your guests have arrived!’
‘So I see—have they been here long?’
‘About an hour, Madame; Monsieur your uncle asked you to come to him as soon as you returned.’
‘Where is my uncle?’ Anne asked him. She paused in the entrance and looked round. There were faces that she did not know, wearing strange livery, and a very thin, grey-haired little woman in a brown cloak shouting directions about the luggage in such a bad accent that even Anne could hardly understand her. But she recognized her; it was her cousin Lady Katharine’s maid, Annie, and Annie was very much a part of their extraordinary story. She had been found a year after their escape from Scotland, the only survivor of the massacre which killed all her mistress’s family, and brought over to France to join her.
‘Your uncle is in the Long Salon,’ her steward said. ‘With your guests, Madame.’
‘Very good, I’ll join them there.’ She walked over to the little Scotswoman and touched her on the shoulder.
‘Good day, Annie. Do you recognize me after all this time?’
‘Madame Marquise!’ Annie’s reply was made in purest Scots. ‘Och, how ye’ve grown; I’d hardly know ye now from the tiny lassie I used to play with down here!’ She curtsied, and her sharp, lined face turned pink. She would never have recognized the shy, ordinary child of years ago in this tall, beautiful girl with her dazzling smile. The change was unbelievable.
‘Have you brought my future husband with you?’ Anne asked her.
The old woman’s smile disappeared. ‘Aye,’ she said shortly. ‘But don’t hurry now—it’ll do him no harm to be kept waiting! I can’t believe my eyes, Madame, ye’re so much altered.’
Anne laughed. ‘I always knew I was an ugly child. I’d best go and change my dress.’ She looked down at her skirt; it was streaked with dirt where the dogs had leaped at her affectionately. ‘If there is anything you need for your master and mistress, or yourself, go to my steward Jean; only don’t speak to him in English. He doesn’t understand it. Good afternoon, Annie. And welcome.’
She ran up the wide stairs; like the hall they were made of the finest Carreras marble, exported from the Italian quarries at enormous cost. There were alcoves along the wall where her ancestor had placed the early Roman sculptures he had collected. As a very small child Anne used to amuse herself by skipping down the staircase, making faces at the figures as she passed. The man her guardian wanted her to marry had been a little boy who used to join her in that game; it was one of the few things she remembered about him except that he was older and she much preferred his younger sister. She and Jeanne Macdonald de Mallot were still close friends who wrote regularly to each other, though they seldom visited. She could remember very little indeed about Charles. She walked quickly along the upper corridor, which was really a fine gallery hung with portraits; generations of de Bernards looked down at her, some in hunting dress with their dogs beside them, others in armour mounted upon rearing horses, others with their wives and children in stiff groups. The ancestress who had married a Scottish Earl and gone to live with him at Clandara in the Highlands was one of the prettiest of the pictures in the gallery; Anne was her great-niece and Charles Macdonald was her great-grandson. At the far end of the gallery she almost knocked into a man; he had been standing with his back to her, staring at the picture of the dead Countess of Clandara, Marie Elizabeth de Bernard, at the age of twenty, wearing the costume of Diana.
‘Monsieur!’
Charles turned and bowed. ‘I beg your pardon, Madame. I didn’t see you.’
‘Nor I you,’ she answered. He was staring at her coolly, and to her annoyance she blushed. There was something about him, some mocking look that was familiar.
‘I was just admiring this picture,’ he said. ‘She’s the only pretty one among the whole gallery; the de Bernards are not an attractive family, don’t you agree?’
‘No,’ Anne said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I happen to be Anne de Bernard!’
He turned back to her and smiled. ‘I know,’ he said lightly. ‘I recognized you the moment you bumped into me so clumsily. Even as a child you were always bumping into things or rolling on the lawns with your dogs. As soon as I saw someone in a riding habit, covered in mud to the eyes, I knew it was you. I’m your cousin Charles. Did you recognize me? I hope I’ve changed!’
‘Not very much,’ she answered. ‘I don’t remember much about you except that you always made me cry. You haven’t altered at all. Excuse me, I’m going to change my dress and go down to greet your mother.’
He stood and watched her as she ran down the rest of the gallery and disappeared through the door at the end. He had lied when he said he recognized her at once; as a child her hair had been brown and her face quite unremarkable; there was no distinguishing feature to identify her twelve years later. Now the mousey hair was the colour of the burnished beech trees in the park outside, and the eyes which had filled with tears at his rudeness were large and very blue. She was quite beautiful, but it was not a beauty which appealed to him in the least. He did not know what he had expected and he had not really cared; he was determined to dislike her because she was not his choice. But this naïve, unsophisticated gentlewoman who blushed and blundered into him like an awkward schoolgirl … He put his hands in his pockets and began to walk slowly down the gallery. He was being made to pay a heavy price for his debts and the estates in Scotland he had never seen. Louise need have no fear. He had hardly been in the house before he was counting the days till he returned to Versailles.
‘What dress will you wear, Madame? I’ve put out three for you, but you left no instructions this morning and I didn’t know …’ Anne had two maids to look after her. She often felt that one was quite sufficient, but the de Bernard ladies always had two women of the chamber, and when they were married they had three.
She went into the dressing closet and pulled out the dresses one by one. There was a yellow silk trimmed round the sleeves with gold lace, a crimson velvet with cuffs and hem lined in Imperial sables, and a peacock-blue, the petticoat covered in silver embroidery. After a moment Anne pointed to the blue dress. ‘I will wear that; bring out my jewel-boxes.’
She had said nothing about meeting her cousin; she allowed the maids to undress her and bathe her, but when they tried to talk about the visit and her fiancé she told them to be quiet. The laws of obedience to the mistress were very strictly enforced at Charantaise; nobody dared to say a word. After she was laced into the blue dress and sitting before her dressing mirror, while one of the maids dressed her hair, Anne opened the jewel-boxes one after another, taking out this piece and that and rejecting it. Her mother had been passionately fond of jewels; many of the lovely rings and ornaments were given to her by her lovers. Her husband was a stern and solid man, devoted to his estates and his sports and accustomed to the vagaries of his frivolous wife which he ignored. Anne had inherited the splendid family jewels of the de Bernards and the sentimental trophies of her imprudent mother. It was a set of these which suited the brilliant colour of her dress. They were pale sapphire, surrounded by large diamonds and exquisitely set in a necklace and a brooch. It was the custom to change four times a day, when she went walking or driving out, hunting, receiving visitors in the afternoon and again when she dined at night—even alone.
The only difference was in her choice that night; the blue gown was very formal; her reflection in the mirror dazzled with diamonds and the flash of silver embroidery. She would have given anything in the world to have met her cousin Charles for the first time looking as she did at that moment.
‘My fan,’ she said. The maid put a pale blue one in her hand. ‘Ring for my uncle to escort me.’
‘Immediately, Madame.’
When the old Comte de Bernard came into her boudoir he opened his eyes wide and made her a low bow.
‘My dear Anne! Why, you look simply brilliant, simply dazzling!’
‘Uncle, before I go down I want to tell you something. I don’t like my cousin and I’m not going to marry him.’
The Comte was genuinely fond of his niece. It was his ambition to see her suitably married before he died and the future of Charantaise secured by several children. He could think of no more sensible match than between the two cousins. He had hardly seen the young man himself, but he was handsome enough to please any woman and, in the Comte’s estimation, his reputation was not a disadvantage. The old roue would never have wished an inexperienced prig upon his niece. Equally, his greatest anxiety had been the advent of some smooth-mannered fortune hunter; but Charles Macdonald had excellent prospects and the Scots were notoriously independent. Anne and her great possessions would be safer with him than with any of the degenerate scoundrels he had seen loafing around Versailles.
‘How do you know, my darling child, when you haven’t even seen him?’