“Immediately after the harvest.”
He took me by the shoulders.
“You know why, Dallas.”
I shook my head.
“Because Monsieur Ie Comte wants me out of the way.”
“Why?”
He laughed bitterly.
“He does not give his reasons. He merely gives his orders. It no longer pleases him that I should be here so, although I have been here all my life, I am now to move on.”
“But surely if you explain …”
“Explain what? That this is my home … as the chateau is his? We, my dear Dallas, are not supposed to have such absurd sentiments. We are serfs … born to obey. Did you not know that?”
“This is absurd, Jean Pierre.”
“But no. I have my orders.”
“Go to him … tell him … I am sure he will listen.”
He smiled at me.
“Do you know why he wants me to go away? Can you guess? It is because he knows of my friendship with you. He does not like that.”
“What should it mean to him?” I hoped Jean Pierre did not notice the excited note in my voice.
“It means that he is interested in you … in his way.”
“But this is ridiculous.”
“You know it is not. There have always been women … and you are different from any he has ever known. He wants your undivided attention … for a time.”
“How can you know?”
“How can I know? Because I know him. I have lived here all my life and although he is frequently away, this is his home too. Here he lives as he can’t live in Paris. Here he is lord of us all. Here we have stood still in time and he wants to keep it like that.”
“You hate him, Jean Pierre.”
“Once the people of France rose against such as he is.”
“You’ve forgotten how he helped Gabrielle and Jacques.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Gabrielle like all women has a fondness for him.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That I don’t believe in this goodness of his. There’s always a motive behind it. To him we are not people with lives of our own. We are his slaves, I tell you. If he wants a woman then anyone who stands in his way is removed and when she is no longer required, well… You know what happened to the Comtesse.”
“Don’t dare say such things.”
“Dallas! What’s happened to you?”
“I want to know what you were doing in the gun-room at the chateau.”
“I?”
“Yes, I found your grape scissors there. Your mother said you had missed them and that they were yours.”
He was taken aback a little. Then he said: “I had to go to the chateau to see the Comte on business . that was just before he went away. “
“And he took you to the gun-room?”
“No.”
“But that’s where I found them.”
“The Comte wasn’t at home so I thought I’d have a look round the chateau. You’re surprised. It’s a very interesting place. I couldn’t resist looking round. That was the room, you know, where an ancestor of mine last saw the light of day.”
“Jean Pierre,” I said, ‘you shouldn’t hate anyone so much. “
“Why should it all be his? Do you know that he and I are blood relations? A great-great-grandfather of mine was half-brother to a Comte the only difference was that his mother was not a Comtesse.”
“Please don’t talk like this.” A terrible thought struck me and I said: “I believe you would kill him.”
Jean Pierre did not answer and I went on: “That day in the woods…”
“I didn’t fire that shot. Do you imagine I’m the only one who hates him?”
“You have no reason to hate him. He has never harmed you. You hate him because he is what he is and you want what he has.”
“It’s a good reason for hating.” He laughed suddenly.
“It’s just that I’m furious with him now because he wants to send me away. Wouldn’t you hate anyone who wanted to send you away from your home and the one you loved? I did not come here to talk of hating the Comte but of loving you. I shall go to Mermoz when the harvest is over and I want you to come with me, Dallas. You belong here among us. After all we are your mother’s people. Let us be married and we will laugh at him then. He has no power over you.”
No power over me! I thought: but you are wrong, Jean Pierre. No one has ever before had this power to regulate my happiness, to excite and depress me.
Jean Pierre had seized my hands; he drew me towards him, his eyes shining.
“Dallas, marry me. Think how happy that you will make us all-you, me, my family. You are fond of us, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “I am fond of you all.”
“And do you want to go away… back to England? What will you do there, Dallas, my darling? Have you friends there? Then why have you been content to leave them so long? You want to be here, don’t you?
You feel that you belong here? “
I was silent. I thought of it. The life Jean Pierre was offering me. I imagined myself being caught up in the excitement of the vineyards, taking my easel out and developing that little talent I had for painting. Visiting the family at the Maison Bastide . But no, then I should see the chateau; I should never be able to look at it without a pain in my heart; and there would be times when I should see the Comte perhaps. He would look at me and bow courteously. And perhaps he would say to himself:
Who is that woman? I have seen her somewhere. Oh, she is that Mademoiselle Lawson who came to do the pictures and married Jean Pierre Bastide over at Mermoz.
Better to go right away than that better to take the opportunity which Claude had offered and which was still open although it would probably not remain so much longer.
“You hesitate,” said Jeanne Pierre.
“No. It can’t be.”
“You do not love me?”
“I don’t really know you, Jean Pierre.” The words had escaped me, and I had not meant to say them.
“But we are old friends, I thought.”
“There is so much that we don’t know about each other.”
“All I have to know of you is that I love you.”
Love? I thought. Yet you do not speak of it as vehemently as you do of hate.
His hatred of the Comte was stronger than his love for me; and it occurred to me then that one had grown out of the other. Was Jean Pierre eager to marry me because he thought that the Comte was attracted by me? As that thought came to me I was conscious of a great revulsion against him and he no longer seemed like the old friend in whose home I had spent so many hours. He was a sinister stranger.
“Come, Dallas,” he said, ‘say we’ll be married. And I’ll go to the Comte and tell him that I shall be taking a bride with me to Mermoz. ”
There it was! He would go to the Comte in triumph.
“I’m sorry, Jean Pierre,” I said, ‘but this is not the way. “
“You mean you will not marry me?”
“No, Jean Pierre, I can’t marry you.”
He dropped my hands and a look of baffled rage crossed his features.
Then he lifted his shoulders, “But,” he said, “I shall continue to hope.”
I had a great desire to escape from the cellar. Such hatred of one man towards another was terrifying; and I, who had felt so self-sufficient in the past, so able to take care of myself, had now begun to learn the meaning of fear.
I was glad to come out into the hot light of day.
I went straight to my room and thought about Jean Pierre’s proposal.
He had not the manner of a man in love. He i’ had shown me how deeply he could feel when he talked of the Comte. To spite the Comte he would marry me. This horrifying thought brought with it its elation. He had noticed, then, the Comte’s interest in me. Yet since his return from Paris he had scarcely seemed aware of me.