64 The Castle Made for Love Page 3

  But he was dead and all she could think of now was that every newspaper story had contained the name of the Marquis.

  If she read of a party, first night at the theatre, a reception or a fancy dress ball, the Marquis’s name always featured prominently amongst the guests. He was as much written about and certainly as much talked about as the Emperor and the Prince Napoleon.

  His idiosyncrasies and his scandals were spoken of in the same hushed tones as were used when speaking of people like Madame Musard, who owed her vast wealth to the King of the Netherlands and who gave fantastic parties or the Princesse de Castiglione, who apparently, Yola learnt, was loved to distraction by the Emperor.

  It was all very hard to understand, but one thing was certain, one thing was unmistakable, whatever happened in Paris, the Marquis was part of it.

  “I will not marry him, Papa,” she said aloud, with her hands on her father’s desk. “You cannot have known what he is like.”

  She waited almost as if she expected her father to argue with her as he had done so often.

  Sometimes it had been a duel of wits and she thought their words clashed through the air like rapiers.

  They fenced and thrust at each other, usually to end up laughing, with Yola putting her arms round her father’s neck to cry,

  “I won! Tell me I won, Papa! I do so long to beat you!”

  “You have won, my dearest,” he would say, but his eyes would be twinkling.

  She had invariably had the feeling that had he wished he would have defeated her all too easily.

  Yet it had all been such fun, so exciting and stimulating that when he had died she felt crippled without him as if she had lost an arm or a leg.

  Now, at the most important moment of her life, when she stood, as it were, at the crossroads, there was no one to help her to make the decision which would decide the future.

  “Look at it this way, Papa,” she said as if he was sitting opposite her, “I am young and you have given me noble ideals to believe in, to fight for and try to achieve.”

  Her voice rang out as she asked,

  “Do you really believe that someone like the Marquis would help me develop the estates as we planned we would do? Would be able to make The Castle a place where people with intelligence and brains would wish to congregate?”

  Yola paused before she went on slowly,

  “You used to say that when I was grown up we would have a salon, not in Paris but in the country, here in the Garden of France, which is so beautiful and so conducive to thought.”

  She threw out her hands in an expressive gesture as she asked,

  “Do you really believe that would amuse the Marquis?”

  Again she paused before she continued,

  “He goes from boudoir to boudoir. He is talked about with one woman this week, another the next, a third the week after that. He is seen at the races, in the Bois de Boulogne, at the State Balls and parties given by actresses and courtesans.”

  She gave a little laugh that had no humour in it.

  “You always said, Papa, that a man could not think in such circumstances and I am sure that’s true.”

  She sighed.

  “I want to live as you and I decided we would, through our minds, so that we can see beneath the surface and find what you called ‘the world behind the world’. That is the way to develop and that ultimately is the way to help France.”

  There was almost a note of ecstasy in Yola’s voice.

  Then, as if she realised that there was no one to answer her, she put her hands up over her eyes.

  “Help me, Papa. Tell me what to do,” she begged, “for to be truthful – I am frightened – frightened of what will – become of me.”

  She did not cry although tears pricked her eyes.

  Then, as if she listened and heard only the silence, she resolutely sat back in the chair and, as if to divert her mind from the intensity of her feelings, she opened the drawer in front of her.

  It was filled with papers and she thought vaguely that she must go through them because she supposed that they concerned the estate.

  She must learn, she thought, every detail that her father had accumulated about it.

  Then she closed the drawer and looked in another. Here there were a number of maps and plans and she knew that these were important and she must study them when she had the time.

  She opened a third drawer.

  When she saw what it contained, she was very still.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, she lifted the miniature that lay on top of a pile of letters and looked at it.

  It depicted a woman.

  She was not very young and not strictly and classically beautiful. But there was something compelling and very attractive about her eyes and the faint smile of amusement that curved her lips.

  Her dark hair was swept back from an intelligent forehead and she wore round her neck a locket on a green velvet ribbon.

  Yola sat looking at the miniature for a long time, until, just as if her father had spoken to her, she knew what she must do.

  For a moment it seemed too extraordinary, almost too fantastic to contemplate and yet the idea was so clear, so distinct, that it was impossible not to know it might be the solution to her problem.

  Very gently she replaced the miniature where it had lain and then she closed the drawer and locked it.

  As she put the key in the middle drawer where the servants were unlikely to find it, she looked across the room and said very quietly beneath her breath,

  “Thank you – Papa!”

  Chapter Two

  Yola drove the chaise, which had always been her father’s favourite conveyance, with two horses pulling it towards the small town of Langeais.

  It was where they shopped from Beauharnais and there was also in the town a fifteenth-century castle which had been built on the site of an early fortress.

  Her father had been friends with the owner of it, but Yola was not today calling at this castle since she had plans which she had lain awake last night perfecting in her mind.

  Accompanying her was the middle-aged groom who was in charge of the stables at Beauharnais and whom Yola had known since she was a child.

  He had been delighted when she came home and as soon, as they started driving through the lush green countryside, he talked of the horses she must ride and one in particular which he hoped she would break in.

  Yola made the expected answers and responded to his enthusiasm, but part of her mind was elsewhere.

  When they had crossed the River Loire and reached the town, she drove through the traffic of wagons, country-carts and a few prosperous-looking carriages to draw up at the pharmacy.

  Holding her horses steady, she took two pieces of paper from the pocket of her short jacket.

  “Will you have this made up, Jacques,” she asked. “It will take I think about fifteen or twenty minutes and, while you are waiting, here is a list of some other things I require.”

  There were quite a number of them, silks for embroidery, needles, cottons, yards of tape, and various other small items, which Jacques looked at with consternation in his eyes.

  “This’ll take some time, m’mselle,” he said. “The horses are fresh and it’ll be hard to keep them standing so long.”

  “I don’t intend to let them stand, Jacques,” Yola replied. “I will drive them through the town and look at the country on the other side.”

  “You’ll be all right alone, m’mselle?”

  “Are you doubting my skill with the reins. Jacques?” Yola asked. “You taught me yourself and, if I cannot drive as well as Papa, it must be your fault!”

  The groom laughed.

  “You drive well enough, m’mselle, for a lady, as you well know.”

  Yola smiled at the qualification, knowing that she was in fact an extremely expert driver and rider.

  “I will come back for you in about twenty minutes, Jacques,” she told him. “But don’t worry if I am a little longer.
It is so exciting to be in the valley again that I might easily forget the time.”

  Before Jacques could expostulate, she had driven away, sitting with a straight back, holding her reins and her whip at the angle that reminded the old groom forcibly of the late Comte.

  There was a suspicion of tears in his eyes as he watched Yola until she was out of sight, then hurriedly he went into the pharmacy.

  As soon as Yola was out of the town, she touched her horses gently with the whip and they moved swiftly over a narrow road until they reached a small hamlet.

  Here she hesitated for a moment before she turned left and a few moments later saw high iron gates opening onto a tree-bordered drive.

  She turned her horses up it, the ground rising until ahead she saw a house in grey stone with turrets on either side of it and a double sweep of steps leading to the front door.

  It was very small and yet so attractive that it looked to Yola like a Fairy Palace in miniature and she recognised that it had been built at the same period as her own castle.

  There was a gravel sweep in the front and, as she turned her horses in it, an aged groom came hurrying from an adjacent stable to go to their heads.

  As he did so, he noticed the Beauharnais coat of arms on the chaise and she saw his eyes look at it with astonishment.

  She alighted and, before she reached the front door, as if her arrival had been noticed as she came up the drive, an old servant with white hair stood there bowing respectfully.

  “Is Madame Renazé at home?” Yola enquired.

  “I will enquire, mademoiselle, if she is receiving visitors,” the servant replied.

  He went ahead and Yola followed him up a flight of stairs into a small salon.

  One glance told her that it was furnished in exquisite taste and, as the servant bowed and went from the room, closing the door behind him, Yola looked round her.

  She knew that the colours, the furnishings and the very pictures on the walls were exactly what her father liked and undoubtedly he had chosen them himself.

  Then she saw that there was a portrait of him over the mantelpiece.

  It must have been painted about fifteen years earlier and obviously by a very skilled artist, for it was brilliantly done and was a perfect likeness.

  There was the twinkle in his eyes that she had always loved, a faint smile on his lips and he looked both happy and extremely handsome, as if he was listening to something he enjoyed hearing.

  ‘I am here, Papa,’ Yola told him wordlessly.

  Then she heard the door open and a woman came into the room.

  It was easy to recognise her from the miniature that Yola had found in her father’s desk, but she was not in fact much older, although she had many grey hairs and there were soft lines at the sides of her sparkling eyes.

  It was easy to see that she had lost none of the attractiveness that the artist had portrayed so faithfully and she walked proudly and with dignity.

  There was, however, an expression of almost incredulous surprise on her face as she advanced towards Yola.

  “My servant told me,” she said in a low voice, “having recognised the coat of arms on your chaise, that Mademoiselle la Comtesse had called on me, but I thought he must be mistaken.”

  “I have come to see you, madame,” Yola replied, “because I need your help.”

  “My help?” Madame Renazé repeated. Then she added in a different tone, “Perhaps it is something that concerns your father’s estate?”

  Yola was well aware that her father had left a considerable sum of money to Madame Renazé in his will and the title deeds of the château in which she lived.

  She answered quickly,

  “No, madame, it is nothing to do with my father, except that had he been here I could have asked his advice.”

  “So instead you have come to me?” Madame Renazé asked in surprise.

  “I feel you are the only person who can help me.”

  Madame Renazé was still for a moment and it was obvious that she could hardly believe what she had heard.

  Then she said quickly,

  “Forgive me, mademoiselle, I am forgetting my manners in my astonishment at meeting you. May I offer you some coffee or would you prefer wine?”

  “A cup of coffee would be very nice,” Yola answered.

  It was not because she needed it, but because she thought it might disperse the formality of the atmosphere and make it easier for her to say what she intended.

  Madame rang a small silver bell that stood on one of the tables and almost immediately the door opened and the old servant stood there.

  “Café, s’il vous plait,” she ordered.

  When the door closed behind him, she indicated a chair near the window.

  “Will you be seated, mademoiselle?” she asked and occupied the sofa opposite.

  Yola sat down, realising that outside the window was a balcony and beyond a fine view of the valley of the Indre.

  As she looked out, Madame Renazé inspected her finely drawn profile and then she said,

  “I had always heard how beautiful you were, mademoiselle, and the reports were not exaggerated.”

  “My father was perhaps prejudiced,” Yola said with a smile.

  “He loved you very deeply.”

  “And you, madame, made him very happy. I shall always be grateful to you for bringing so much happiness into his life.”

  She saw Madame Renazé’s eyes fill with tears, but she would not let them fall and after a moment she said in a voice that was hardly audible,

  “I was the most fortunate woman in the world to be privileged to love such a wonderful man.”

  “Papa felt the same about you,” Yola replied. “He told me once that when you came into his life he was almost in despair. He had nothing to look forward to except darkness and depression, then suddenly there was light and the light was you.”

  Madame Renazé clasped her hands together and then she said quietly,

  “You are very generous, mademoiselle, to say such things to me and to come here, although in fact you ought not to have done so.”

  “I had every right to do so, knowing how much you meant to Papa,” Yola answered, “and I am glad, so very glad, that you have such a beautiful house and there are so many things in it to remind you of him.”

  She knew that Madame Renazé had always behaved in the most exemplary manner.

  She had actually been in Venice with her father when he died and she had brought the body home, seeing to everything without any fuss or publicity.

  When the coffin was handed over at Langeais Station to those she had notified to be ready to receive it, she had disappeared.

  She had not come to the funeral, which had been attended, after the Comte had lain in state in his own Chapel, by almost everyone in the vicinity, nor had she even sent an identifiable wreath of flowers.

  It was only through the gifts to her in the Comte’s will that anyone could have guessed how much they meant to each other.

  Yola had always known and, because she and her father had talked frankly with each other, the Comte had often spoken of Madame Renazé.

  She could understand that no full-blooded intelligent man like her father could live with her mother and not find life intolerable.

  She wondered now whether, if he had lived, her father would have married Madame Renazé

  But he had died before the conventional year of mourning for his wife was over and it was something that even Yola had not dared to ask him, in case he should think that it an intrusion into the secret side of his life.

  Now, looking at Madame Renazé, Yola thought she was exactly the type of person her father would love.

  When she had first known about her, she had been a little jealous, but her father had sensed it and had made it clear to her that love was big enough to have many facets and be given to many people.

  “In books,” he had said, “they always talk about love as if it is a cake that can only be divided into such-a
nd-such a number of slices and I regret to say that many people are so stupid they think the same way.”

  He was watching Yola as he spoke to see her reaction to what he was saying.

  “Children start when they are quite small,” he went on saying. “Do you love me more than you love Pierre? And women always want absolute and complete possession, but that in fact is not natural or possible.”

  His voice had deepened as he continued,

  “Love is boundless, love is something one cannot parcel up into small containers or restrict. I can promise you, my dearest, you will find you can give your love in a hundred different ways and still have a heart which is overflowing with more.”

  He had gone on to explain to Yola that it was love when one was thrilled by a beautiful view, by a picture or by a piece of exquisite craftsmanship.

  “One gives out something of one’s self towards it,” he said, “and one receives in return. That is love, as is compassion, pity, the desire to fight injustice and the impulse of mercy.”

  Yola tried to understand the first time he spoke in such a way and later on he had elaborated what was a fundamental part of his own beliefs.

  “I love you, ma petite,” he said, “with every fibre of my being, with my senses and with my mind. At the same time I love other people, but that does not detract from my love for you.”

  He smiled as he told her,

  “In fact, in some ways it is increased. Because one person of whom I am thinking, having made me happy, has made it possible for me to have more happiness to give to others.”

  Looking at Madame Renazé now, Yola realised that there was a softness and gentleness in her expression that she had never known in her mother’s.

  Equally she knew that Madame had an intelligence and perhaps a wit that must have delighted her father.

  There had been a short silence, as if the two women were appraising each other. Then Madame Renazé said,

  “Will you tell me, mademoiselle, how I can help you? You know that you have only to ask me for anything that is within my power to give.”

  “May I say first that I hope you will call me ‘Yola’,” Yola replied. “The only person who has ever called me that was Papa, but I feel that is how he spoke of me to you.”