Love in the Moon Read online

  “It was the damned Duc’s fault,” Harry said. “When Papa, who had visited France ever since he had been a small boy, found that he was no longer able to go there it hurt him.”

  Canèda sighed.

  “They certainly paid the price for running away with each other, but I do not think that they ever regretted it.”

  “No, of course not,” Harry agreed. “I have never seen two people as happy as Papa and Mama and I only hope when I get married that I shall be half as happy.”

  “That is exactly what I think too,” Canèda said, “so you will understand that, whatever Aunt Anne says, I cannot marry Lord Warrington or any of those other stupid young men who have nothing better to do than to try to steal a kiss.”

  Harry laughed.

  “You ought to feel flattered.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Canèda asserted. “When I do marry, I want a very different kind of man from any of those I have met so far.”

  “Let me know when you find him,” Harry said. “I don’t mind telling you that the aunts are complaining that you are getting yourself talked about and it is something that they most ardently disapprove of.”

  Canèda shrugged her shoulders in a gesture that was indisputably French.

  “I cannot help it if men fall in love with me,” she said, “and I knew Aunt Anne was furious last night because I had been so long in the Conservatory. But, short of screaming for help, I don’t know how I could have got away from Lord Warrington any more quickly than I eventually managed to do.”

  “Shall I tell him to behave himself?” Harry asked.

  “I don’t believe it would do any good,” Canèda replied. “The only thing is that I find it such a bore having him follow me round like a dog. Perhaps we could go away from London and him.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Harry asked. “That we should go to Langstone Park or even to France?”

  Canèda did not reply and he said,

  “That is certainly one place I will never set foot in, except that I would just like to tell my grandmother and grandfather and all the other de Bantômes exactly what I think of them!”

  He made an exclamation of anger and went on,

  “How dare they treat Mama as they did, cutting her off as if she was a leper! As for the Duc, however much he felt insulted, he had no right to try to ostracise Papa in Paris and London. I wish I could give him a taste of his own medicine.”

  “I expect he is dead by now,” Canèda replied. “He was much older than Mama and he wished to marry her because his wife had died and he wanted a young woman to give him more children.”

  “That is the sort of reason one would expect,” Harry said scornfully. “If his son or whoever has inherited the title ever comes to England, I will take my revenge and make it a pretty sharp one.”

  Canèda did not answer. She stared at the letter as if she was reading it again.

  Suddenly she exclaimed,

  “Harry, I have an idea.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think I might accept this invitation to go to France.”

  “Are you mad?” he asked. “Why on earth should you want to do that after the way they behaved to Mama?”

  “It is because they behaved to Mama the way they did that and like you I want to teach them a lesson,” Canèda replied.

  “I don’t understand. What are you intending to do?” Harry enquired.

  “There is something I heard someone say at a party last week,” Canèda said. “I did not pay much attention at the time and I must find out more about it, but I have a feeling that those who live in the Dordogne region of France are suffering financial losses.”

  Harry stared at her.

  “Are you saying that the Comtes de Bantôme may have lost their money?”

  “I don’t know,” Canèda answered. “Now that they know you are so rich it would explain, would it not, why they are trying to patch up the differences between us. And perhaps they want Cousin Hélène to marry an Englishman.”

  “I don’t believe it. It’s too far-fetched!” Harry said. “But, if that is what they want, then you should certainly refuse to help them.”

  “I am not going to help them, stupid,” Canèda replied. “If I go to Bantôme I shall go not as an ordinary ladylike member of the family but as Lady Canèda, very rich and grand and, when I have made them thoroughly envious, I will make it very clear that we would not lift a little finger to help them.”

  “It sounds quite an idea, if you can be certain they have fallen on hard times,” Harry agreed. “From all Mama used to tell me they were rich and powerful and, with their vineyards, sitting on banks of gold.”

  “Yes, I know,” Canèda said, “but supposing the vineyards became not so productive? What would happen then?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Harry replied, “but if you take my advice, you will stay at home. Not even to avoid Warrington would I make the trip to France.”

  “It’s no hardship,” Canèda said in a dreamy voice. “I have always longed to see the country that Mama belonged to and half of my blood has an undeniable affinity with.”

  Harry did not reply and she went on,

  “I read every book about France that ever comes my way and all I can tell you is that, while I long to see Paris, I want more than anything else in the world to visit the parts of France that Mama described to me, the Dordogne, of course, which was her own country and the Loire Valley, where she would have lived if she had married the Duc.”

  “She used to talk about him sometimes,” Harry said, “and about his great châteaux and how wonderful the others were – Chenonceaux, Chambord, Chaumont and, of course, Saumac, where she would have lived with all the grandeur of a Duchesse.”

  “Let’s go there,” Canèda begged suddenly. “We can feast our eyes on what we have always wanted to see and at the same time wreak our vengeance on the de Bantômes and if possible the Duc de Saumac as well,”

  “And leave all this?” Harry asked. “You must be raving! Do you think at the moment I would really leave Langstone and all the fun I am having in London?”

  Canèda smiled.

  “I grant you that she is very alluring.”

  Harry grinned.

  “That is what I find and I assure you that there are several men only too ready to step into my shoes.”

  “Then I might, I just might, go to France alone,” Canèda said reflectively.

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” her brother replied sharply. “You know as well as I do that you have to be chaperoned.”

  “I was not suggesting that,” Canèda answered. “I meant if you will not come with me, I know exactly who would accompany me, if I asked her to do so.”

  “Who?”

  “Madame de Goucourt!”

  There was silence for a moment and then Harry said,

  “I don’t doubt that she would go anywhere if we were paying for her. But quite frankly, Canèda, I think this is a mad idea. Let’s tear up the letter and leave them wondering if we have ever received it or keep them on tenterhooks for a little while at any rate.”

  He paused to add,

  “If those damned cousins come here, I swear I will do everything I can to make their visit a fiasco.”

  “I doubt if you will succeed,” Canèda said. “My way is far cleverer and very subtle and it would be the direct answer to the way that they treated Mama after she left them. She even had a little money of her own, but her father arranged through his lawyers that she could not have it unless she lived in France. It was an illegal enactment, but Papa could not afford the legal fees to fight it.”

  “So they literally stole Mama’s money from her and kept it all these years! I agree with you, they are despicable,” Harry said. “But what is the point of torturing yourself by going to meet them?”

  “I want revenge as much as you do, if not more,” Canèda said, “and I am just wondering how I can revenge myself on the Duc. He is dead, but I suppose his s
on, if he had one, will have inherited his position. Perhaps I could make him miserable in one way or another.”

  “You had much better enjoy yourself in England.”

  “If I go, I will not be gone for long,” Canèda replied. “May I use your yacht?’’

  Harry threw out his hands in what was a slightly un-English gesture.

  “I have not seen it yet, but, of course, it is yours to command.”

  “Thank you, dearest. I hope it is very large. I shall be taking carriage horses with me, outriders and, of course, Ariel.”

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Harry exclaimed. “The whole idea is crazy and I warn you, you are not setting foot outside this house without being properly chaperoned. So if Madame de Goucourt says ‘no’ – no it is!”

  “But Madame de Goucourt will say ‘yes’,” Canèda replied. “I am going to get in touch with her this morning. She lives in a small, uncomfortable little house in an unfashionable part of London now that the glorious days when her husband was the French Ambassador have ended.”

  “She knew Mama and loved her,” Harry said, “so I trust her to look after you.”

  Canèda did not contradict him, but in the depths of her blue eyes there was a glint of mischief that her brother did not see.

  *

  Madame de Goucourt’s house was, as Canèda had said, small and slightly shabby in a narrow street off a fashionable square.

  The Frenchwoman had been much younger than her husband the Ambassador. She was now only just fifty and she resented the fate that had swept her from her importance as a member of the Diplomatic Corps into virtual obscurity.

  However, her daughter had married an Englishman and her younger son was still finishing his education at Oxford University, so because she wanted to be near them, she had stayed in England rather than return to her native land.

  She had known Clémentine de Bantôme ever since they were children and she had always been deeply sympathetic over the way that she had been treated.

  “It is not as if your husband is not of noble birth,” she would say indignantly. “He belongs to a very distinguished English family and, although he has no money, I can understand that he is, ma chérie, a man from whom, having once given him your heart, you could not take it back.”

  ‘“That is true,” Clémentine had said with a smile. “I love Gerald and I am the happiest woman in the whole world. But sometimes, just sometimes, Yvonne, I long to hear French voices, to eat French food and to see the river, blue as the sky above it, winding its way through the vineyards and the deep gorges that as a child I was certain contained prehistoric animals.”

  Madame de Goucourt had laughed.

  “I understand how you feel,” she had said, “but you have your husband and those two adorable children.”

  “You don’t suppose I have ever regretted running away, do you?” Clémentine had enquired. “It was the luckiest and most marvellous day of my life! But I can never forgive the Duc de Saumac for what he did to Gerald.”

  “That I can understand,” Madame de Goucourt had said. “It was cruel and wicked, but then he was a very strange man.”

  It seemed now to Madame that the years rolled back and it was not Canèda sitting in her small sitting room, asking her questions, but Clémentine.

  “Tell me about the Duc de Saumac, madame, Canèda asked.

  “Mon Dieu! What makes you think of him, my little one? I thought you had come here to tell me about your successes in the Beau Monde. Everyone is talking about you and how beautiful, intelligent and charming you are and as for Harry all the ladies are wild about him.”

  “I know that,” Canèda answered, “and it is very exciting for both of us after having lived so quietly for so long. But please, madame, answer my question about the Duc de Saumac.”

  “What is there to tell you?”

  “Tell me about the old one, the one who was so cruel to Papa.”

  “Oh, he is dead and I daresay he is not mourned by many people. As I expect you know, he wanted to marry your mother because, having only one son by his wife who was ill for many, many years, he wanted when he was nearly sixty to start a new family, just in case anything should happen to his heir.”

  “And did anything happen to him?” Canèda enquired.

  “No. He is now the Duc de Saumac, and let me see, he must be at least thirty-two or thirty-three years old.”

  “And in good health, I suppose,” Canèda said a little bitterly.

  “He is,” Madame de Goucourt replied.

  “Because in a way it is very sad. His wife went mad soon after he was married. He was very young and in fact had just come of age.”

  ‘She went mad?’ Canèda repeated to herself and there was just a note of satisfaction in her voice.

  “It was, of course, hidden away as it always is in France,” Madame de Goucourt said, “but the old Duc must have been very bitter when he realised that there was no likelihood of his daughter-in-law producing any children, not even one, as he had managed to have himself.”

  “Well, I am delighted he was upset!” Canèda said.

  “I believe the present Duc is a strange man,” Madame de Goucourt continued, as if she spoke to herself.

  “In what way?” Canèda enquired.

  “Well, apparently he is very upset and sensitive about his wife’s condition and he withdrew from Society to live all the time at his Castle on the Loire, He runs a riding school there where he trains horses for the Cavalry Regiments and, of course, for his own pleasure.”

  “A riding school,” Canèda exclaimed.

  “He is, I believe, quite famous by now in that part of France,” Madame de Goucourt said. “General Bourgueil when I last saw him was talking about it and saying what excellent horses his Officers were able to obtain from the de Saumac school.”

  Canèda was silent for a moment. Then she drew from her bag the letter that Harry had received from the Château de Bantôme and gave it to Madame de Goucourt.

  “Read this,” she suggested.

  Madame de Goucourt took it from her and, holding up a very elegant lorgnette, read it carefully.

  When she finished, she gave a little cry.

  “This is extraordinary! Quite extraordinary!” she exclaimed. “Was not your brother surprised to receive it?”

  “He was indeed “ Canèda replied, “and so was I!”

  Then, as if she could not contain herself any longer, she said angrily,

  “How dare they write to us just because Harry has inherited the title and is now of some importance! Why did they not ask us to stay when Mama was alive? You know she was never a person to bear a grudge. She would have forgiven them and it would have made her so happy.”

  There was just a little throb in Canèda’s voice about her mother having been exiled from her kith and kin for so long.

  “It is impossible to undo the past, ma chérie, she said softly. “But if you can patch up the feud, you could perhaps make these people happy before they die.”

  “Make them happy?” Canèda cried. “I hate them and Harry hates them too! But I have an idea how I might make them really penitent and really ashamed of the way they behaved.”

  Madame de Goucourt put down her lorgnette and looked at Canèda in surprise.

  “What are you saying?” she asked. “What are you suggesting?”

  “First of all,” Canèda answered, “I want you to tell me why, at this particular moment, apart from the fact that Harry is now important in England, they should have written to us.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and Canèda said insistently,

  “I want the truth, madame. I feel there is something behind it and I want to know what it is.”

  “Of course, I cannot be certain,” Madame said slowly after a moment, “but there have been reports of trouble in the Dordogne.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “First of all their harvests have been bad and my friends tell me that locally grown wheat cann
ot compete with cheaper American wheat, which is imported, and has depressed the prices of the French.”

  She paused, and Canèda, watching the expression on her face, asked,

  “And what else?”

  For a moment she thought that Madame de Goucourt would not tell her.

  Then she said,

  “I have heard, although it is only a rumour, that phylloxera has affected a great number of vines in the region.”

  “Phylloxera!” Canèda exclaimed.

  She would not have been her mother’s daughter if she had not known something about the wine growing that had been so essentially a part of Clémentine de Bantôme’s youth and which was so important to France.

  Gerald Lang had always appreciated French wines and he had taught his children to recognise the good ones, while their mother had explained how the greatest wines of France came from the Dordogne region.

  Phylloxera was, as Canèda knew, the greatest disaster that could occur to any vineyard and the insect itself was dreaded as other countries dreaded the plague.

  Phylloxera had been introduced into France by infected stock from America in the early 1860s.

  Clémentine had read about it in the newspapers and it had not been difficult for her family to understand how tragic she thought it was.

  It was the French newspapers, which their mother occasionally received from English friends who visited France, or from French friends like Madame de Goucourt, who knew how much she treasured them, that told her what was happening.

  With phylloxera the vines lost their leaves and died and it was a little while before it was discovered that the phylloxera aphid had affected the roots of the vine.

  What was frightening was that by the time the dead vines were dug up and inspected, the insects had moved on to other plants which, above ground, appeared to be unaffected and which the vine growers therefore were loath to uproot.

  “It is very very dangerous for the vineyards,” her mother had said after she had read aloud what was in the newspaper.

  “What does it matter to us, who are not even allowed to look at the vines?” her husband had asked bitterly. “Although, thank God, there still seems to be a great deal of good Burgundy and claret in England!”