Виктория Холт - The Demon Lover

It’s getting chilly,” I went on.

“Do you think we ought to sit here?”

I helped her up.

“It was such an interesting talk,” she said, ‘that I forgot I was cold. Before you go I want to show you my spot. The Peak, remember. “

“Oh yes. It’s not far from here, you say.”

“Just over there. Come on.” She took my arm. She seemed a little breathless.

We walked across the grass and there it was before us a wonderful panorama of little hills and woods far away to the horizon.

She pointed.

“Over there would be Paris… if it were near enough for you to see.”

I looked down at the river below. I could see rocks and boulders protruding from the water and yellow coltsfoot growing on the bank.

“Are you scared of heights, Kate?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then why do you hang back?” She had released my arm and stepped nearer to the brink.

“Come on,” she commanded, and I approached the edge.

“Look down,” she said.

I did so. My first thought was that if she had thrown herself over as she had contemplated doing, she would have had little chance of survival.

She was close to me . standing behind me now. She whispered:

“Imagine falling … falling … You wouldn’t know much about it, just that quick gasp … a sort of wild thrill and then down… down . You’d be dead in a matter of seconds.”

I was seized with sudden fear. Why had she brought me here? Why had she talked or she had? What was she implying?

She knows that Kendal is Rollo’s son, I thought. She must believe that we were lovers in Paris and perhaps still are.

She hated him. But would that prevent her resenting the fact that he might love me? That he made it so clear that he loved my child?

I had always known that the Princesse Marie-Claude was impulsive, inclined to be hysterical. I was sure that the ordeal of marriage to Rollo when she was to bear another man’s child had been too much for her. Had it unbalanced her mind?

In those next seconds I was sure that she had brought me here for a purpose and that purpose might well be revenge.

Revenge on me? More likely on him. If she thought he loved me, how could she hurt him more than by destroying me.

It would be so easy. An accident, they would say. The ground crumbled.

She slipped. She went too near the edge.

I felt sure that she was about to push me over the edge . into oblivion.

I turned sharply and stepped away from the edge.

She was looking at me enigmatically, almost resignedly, I thought.

“You were standing very near the edge,” she said, as though admonishing me. She gave a little laugh.

“For a few moments you frightened me. I had a vision of your falling over. Let’s get back to the horses. I’m shivering… with the cold. This is not the time of year to sit about chattering.”

I felt very shaken after that experience. I did convince myself that I had imagined I was in danger, but I tried to remember in detail everything we had said and what had actually happened while we had stood there on the edge of the Peak. She had asked pertinent questions about Kendal; but then I supposed others were asking similar questions. It was true that Rollo did show great interest in Kendal, while at the same time he did not attempt to hide his indifference to the boy who was supposed to be his own.

I felt I was moving towards a climax, and one part of me warned urgently that I ought to get away while another posed the continual question of How and Where?

The miniature of William was progressing. Rollo used to come to the studio as I had asked him to, and it was touching to see William’s delight in having him there showing such an interest in the portrait.

He would look at William kitently and then comment on the miniature.

“You’ve caught the expression in his face,” he would say. Or: “The colour of his skin is not easy to get, I should imagine.”

William sat basking in the unusual interest he was arousing and while I worked I was able to dismiss all my fears and be happy. It was wonderful. Kendal insisted on being there. He was doing a portrait of William too.

“I like a big picture,” he said; and indeed, in spite of his immaturity, he was producing something which had a look of William

So there were the four of us together, and as I painted a serenity crept over me and I wished that we need never break away from those magical moments. Even the children felt it, the deep contentment in that room. Rollo seemed to have forgotten his desire and was ready to settle down in what I can only call an atmosphere of peace.

It could not last, of course. Soon the miniature would be finished.

But it had done what I had wanted it to. It had given something to William which he might never have had. The boy had changed perceptibly. Between us, I thought, Jeanne and I have given him confidence-with a little help from Kendal.

The news was bad. There were dissenting factions all over France. The government was republican but there were strong partisans of monarchy in it. Fighting continued in strife-torn Paris and the rioting of those who were more concerned with making trouble than setting the country right was bringing complete disorder to the capital.

What could I do? Where could I go? I thought again of trying to get to England. I could go to Collison House and live there with Clare. I had had no reply to my letter so I wondered if it had reached her. I was sure that she would give me a warm welcome.

When I suggested to Kendal that we might leave the castle he was overcome with horror. He loved the castle. He had been extremely happy ever since he had come.

“Don’t let’s go, Maman,” he said.

“Let’s stay here. What would the Baron do if we went?”

I did not answer. The question in my mind for a long time had been:

What will the Baron do if we stay?

The picture of William was finished and the Princesse admired it.

“Your work is so good,” she said.

“I often look at those you did of the Baron and me. The one of him is particularly interesting.”

“Do you think so?” I asked.

“Oh yes. You seem to have seen something in him when we didn’t… until you pointed it out.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“There is an expression in his eyes which is almost benign.”

“We all have many sides to our characters,” I reminded her.

“And it takes certain people to bring them out,” she agreed.

“Why, you have made William look quite an attractive child.”

“He is an attractive child.”

“He is better since you came. Sometimes, Kate, I think you have an effect on us all. You are not a witch or something, are you?”

“No indeed. Only a painter.”

“A very good painter. You must agree to that?”

“If I didn’t think so, how could I convince other people that I was?”

“You are very wise, Kate. I am sure Rollo thinks so.”

I turned away. I was always uncomfortable when she talked of him. I remembered that mischievous streak from the past which I had discovered when she came to my room dressed as a maid. That spirit of mischief still lingered. Was she trying to tell me that she knew her husband had been my lover still was and that this child who was beginning to look too like him for the resemblance to be coincidental was his?

They were uneasy days.

I must go. I must. And the answer was always the same:

Where? How? And Kendal must not be put at risk.

Because he understood my feelings so well Rollo found work for me to do. He had been searching through the castle library, he told me, and he had found some old manuscripts which were in need of restoration.

He would show them to me if I could come to the castle the following afternoon while the boys were at their lessons.

I did wonder whether there were, in fact, any manuscripts or whether he just wanted to talk to me. I found him in the library. It was an impressive room lined with bookshelves, as I had imagined it would be, of course, but the books were on various subjects and most of them beautifully bound.

“This is my sanctum,” he said.

“Do you like it?”

I said it was delightful and impressive at the same time.

He took my hand and pressed it to his lips.

“We go on in the same old way, Kate,” he said.

“Don’t you want to change it?”

“Yes. I want to go from here really because that is what I feel I should do.”

“We want to change it for the better,” he said tersely, ‘not for the worse. “

“Have you brought me here to show me old manuscripts, or to talk of impossibilities?”

“To talk possibilities and to look at manuscripts. But first let us talk. How long will it be before you realize that we can’t go on like this?”

“We can,” I contradicted, ‘until I can get away. If it were not for Kendal, I would risk trying to get to England. I am beginning to think that that is what I must do. I have talked about it to Kendal. “

“What does he say?”

“He doesn’t want to leave, of course.”

A slow smile spread across his face.

“He is such a wise boy,” he said.

“You have charmed him with your attentions.”

“Naturally my own son likes me.”

“You have not made yourself so charming to poor little William.”

“I said my own son, I can’t account for bastards;’ ” You are a cruel, hard man. “

“Not to you, Kate … never to you.”

“Once …” I began.

“That was necessary arid it was the beginning of love, wasn’t it?”

“No, pure lust for reveng^’ Oh, that …”

“Which failed.”

“It was highly successful because it showed me that there was one woman in the world who could satisfy me.”

“You! Everything comes back to you. Please show me the manuscripts.”

“In due course. First we talk. I’m tired of this … subterfuge.”

“There is no subterfuge C’n my part.”

“When you pretend that tyson is not my son!”

“How could I do otherwise! I have an idea that your wife already suspects.”

“What does she suspect?”

“That Kendal is your soil-‘ ” Then she is correct in that. “

“That I am your …”

“Mistress?” he said.

“Well, let us hope that she will soon be correct in that too.”

“Please do not talk in that way.”

“But if the first of her suspicions is true, then the second must be.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Oh, Kate, let us make it so. It is a pity to cheat people of their assumptions.”

“You haven’t changed, have you? I believe that the Princesse … resents my being here-‘ ” She has said she is delighted that you are here. The picture other son gives her a great deal of pleasure. She says the boy is better since you have been here. He likes playing with our boy and he is losing that hang-dog look of his. When he was having his portrait painted I almost liked him. “

I said: “Even if it were possible, a woman would have to think very hard before throwing in her lot with a man like you.”

“Now, Kate, be honest. Do you think I don’t know your feelings towards me? Your lips tell lies when they speak, but sometimes they are more honest. Could you let them speak the truth regarding me … for once?”

“I hope I always speak the truth.”

“Not on one all-important matter, and that is your feelings for me.”

“I prefer not to discuss the subject. I have in any case told you many times how I feel about your actions and it is not really very complimentary.”

“That’s why I say your lips lie. Think back, Kate, to everything that has happened to us. You know that you love me. You can’t leave me.

You’re trying all the time to get back to that room in the tower. It’s not very far from here, you know. It’s undisturbed by the war. We could go there. We could recapture that night. “

I faced him angrily. I thought: It is lust, pure lust that he feels for me. He wants me because I don’t want him. He hasn’t changed since that night and is as capable of rape now as he was then. Even his affection for Kendal is nothing more than pride . pride of possession.

My instincts were warning me. I should be wary of him, wary of my own feelings for him. What it was I felt for him I was not sure, but it was not love.

When I had seen him crippled because of what he had done for Kendal, I think I had come near to loving him. I had nursed him with care and tenderness, and perhaps because of the terrible dangers through which we had lived, my feelings towards him had changed. Now he was in his own domain; he had come through the siege of Paris, though not entirely unscathed; he suffered certain pain from his leg, I knew; he would never walk as he had before; but all that did not stop him from doing everything that he wanted to. Here, in the background of his Norman castle, he was the barbarian again, the strong ruthless man who, when he felt a wish, let nothing stand in the way of its gratification.