There was a bureau in my bedroom and in this were sheets of notepaper headed with the address of the castle in elegant gold letters. The paper was of the same texture as the notepaper used in the castle. It could have been torn off from a piece of this.
There must be something significant in this. Could it be possible that someone in the castle was the Comte’s bitter enemy?
I thought, as I always did at times like this, of my mother. I could almost hear her saying to me: “Get out. There’s danger all around you.
You have already become embroiled in this household and it must stop without delay. Go back to’j England.
Take a post as companion . governess . or; better still open a school. “
She is right, I thought, I am becoming too much affected by the Comte.
He has cast a spell on me in some way. I was trying not to believe that he had slipped the fatal dose into the Comtesse’s glass, but I could not with honesty say that I did not doubt him.
Margot was at the door.
“Another stone has been thrown through a window,” she announced.
“It’s just outside here.”
I rose and went to look at it.
Margot shrugged her shoulders.
“Stupid people. What do they think they are going to achieve by that?”
She was not deeply affected. This sort of thing was becoming a commonplace.
The Comte sent for Margot and me. He looked older, sterner than he had before his wife’s death.
“I want you to leave for Paris tomorrow,” he said.
“I think that would be best. I have had a note from the Grassevilles. They would like you to visit them but I think it better that you stay in my Paris residence. You are in mourning. The Grassevilles will visit you there.
You can shop for what you need. ” He turned to me suddenly.
“I rely on you to look after Marguerite.”
I wondered whether I should tell him of the note which had come through the window attached to the stone but I felt it would only add to his anxieties and I did not care to mention it before Margot. I hoped to see him alone before I left, but I realized that he was aware how closely we were watched. He would know too that it was being said he had escaped justice because he had friends in high places.
I went to my room to make my preparations. I took the piece of paper from the drawer and looked at it, wondering what I should do. I could not leave it and yet what if I took it with me and mislaid it? I made one of my sudden decisions. I tore it into scraps and taking it down to the hall where a fire was burning, I threw it in. I watched the flames curl about the blackened edges. It seemed to form itself into a malevolent face and I was immediately reminded
The Waiting City of that one I had seen outside the window on the night of the ball.
Leon! And the paper which might have come from the castle!
It was quite impossible. Leon would never be a traitor to the man who had done so much for him. I was so upset by recent events that my imagination was getting out or hand.
We left early soon after dawn.
The Comte came down to the courtyard to see us off. He held my hand firmly in his and said: “Take care of my daughter … and yourself.”
Then he added: “Be patient.”
I knew what he meant and that remark filled me with excitement, apprehension and foreboding.
The Waiting City
I
Paris! What a city of enchantment. If I could have been there in other circumstances, how I should have loved it. My mother and I used to talk of the various places in the world we should like to visit and high on our list had been Paris.
It was a queen of cities, full of beauty and ugliness, living side by side. When I studied the maps I thought that the island in the Seine on which the city stood was like a cradle in shape and when I pointed this out to Margot she was only mildly interested.
“A cradle,” I said.
“It’s significant. In this cradle beauty was reared. Francois Premier with his love of fine buildings, with his devotion to literature, music and artists laid the foundations of the most intellectual court of Europe.”
Trust you to make it sound like a history lesson t’ retorted Margot.
“Well now, revolution is being reared in your cradle.”
I was startled. It was unlike her to talk seriously.
“Those stones which were thrown at the chateau,” she went on, “I keep thinking of them. Ten years ago they wouldn’t have dared … and now we dare do nothing about it. Change is coming, Minelle. You can feel it all around you.”
I could feel it. In those streets where the crowds jostled, where the vendors shouted their wares. I had the feeling of a waiting city.
The Comte’s residence was in the Faubourg Saint-HonorS among those of other members of the nobility. They stood, these houses, where they had for two to three hundred years, aloof and elegant. Not far away, I was to discover, was that labyrinth of little streets into which one dared not venture unless accompanied by several strong men-evil-smelling, i narrow, cobbled, where lurked those who regarded any stranger as a victim. We went into them on one occasion accompanied by Bessell and another manservant. Margot had insisted. There was the S street of the women who sat at the doors, their faces ludicrously painted, their low-cut dresses deliberately revealing. I remembered the names of the streets. Rue aux Feves, Rue de j la Jouverie, Rue de la Colandre, Rue. des Marmousets. They were the streets of the women and the dyers and outside many of the houses stood great tubs in which the dyes were mixed red, blue and green dye flowed down the gutters like miniature rivers.
My room in the Comte’s hotel was even more elegant than that which I had occupied in the chateau. It overlooked beautiful gardens which were tended by a host of gardeners. There were greenhouses in which exotic blooms flourished and these were used to decorate the rooms.
Margot’s room was next to mine. I arranged it,” she told me.
“And Mimi is in the ante-room. Bessell is with the grooms.”
I had forgotten till then our plan which involved these two. In fact I had never really taken it seriously and she did not mention it until we had been in Paris two or three days.
The Comte and Comtesse de Grasseville called on our first day. Margot, as the hostess, did the honours very graciously, I thought. She walked in the gardens with them and they were all very solemn. As the Comte had reminded us, we were in mourning.
I wondered then whether this meant a postponement of the wedding and came to the conclusion that this must be so.
I was presented to the Comte and Comtesse. Their manner was a little aloof and I wondered if they had heard rumours about my position in the Comte’s household.
I spoke to Margot about this later.
She said she had noticed nothing and they had spoken very kindly of me.
“We talked about the wedding,” she said, ‘and by rights we should wait a year. I don’t know whether we shall. But I shall go on as though there will be no postponement. “
There was shopping to be done. Mimi always accompanied us with Bessell and if we went in the carriage there would be a footman as well.
Sometimes we went on foot and that I enjoyed most. We all dressed very quietly for these expeditions, though none of us mentioned this.
I shall never forget the smell of Paris. There seemed to be more mud there than in any other city. It was black mud and there were metal fragments in it. If one of these touched one’s garments it would make a hole. I remembered that the old Roman name for Paris was Lutetia which meant Mud Town, and I was surprised it had been so called. In the streets boys stood around with brooms to sweep a crossing for those pedestrians who were ready to pay a sou for the service.