The Heiress (7 page)

But perhaps the greatest injustice of all in the country was
lettre de cachet
. When de Charlot threatened Charles with a
lettre de cachet
for the Bastille he was invoking a weapon from which no man or woman in France was safe. In its minor form it was an order of banishment or house arrest until the offender was forgiven, but the signed order, obtained in secret from the King, sentenced its victim to a lifetime of imprisonment in the Bastille. It was procured in secret; whoever's name was on it was arrested in secret and taken to a prison where they vanished from the world without trace. No one knew what became of them; no one dared to ask. Men had fallen victims to the
lettre de cachet
for crimes as varied as speaking against the King, pressing a nobleman for a debt, attempting to marry a girl above their station or merely exciting the jealousy of someone with a friend at Court. Imprisonment without trial was often no worse than coming before one of His Majesty's judges, who by custom paid for their appointments and interpreted the law according to the prisoner's ability to bribe them. Injustice, for so many centuries the lot of the common people of all nations, was meted out with equal vigour to the middle classes in France. Medicine, the Law, the Army and Navy and all Court offices were closed to those not born of the nobility; some of the finest brains wasted their capacities in menial positions or took to the arts as protégés of the very class who refused to admit them upon equal terms. Writers and philosophers abounded as they had always done in that country of singular genius, and they served to put into words the seething discontent of the masses of the people of France. Privilege: it was spat at the nobility and the clergy like an oath, and in its abuse of power and its blind injustice it had indeed become obscene. Hunger, abuse and terror were the servants of the monarchy and the aristocracy. But Charles was only interested in the conditions which were eating away the internal prosperity of France, in relation to the problems facing him in his native Scotland. Sir James had warned him that he would find the people sunk in the deepest poverty, the two great houses laid in blackened ruins and many of the old clan ways abandoned altogether. At the time he had shrugged and betrayed no interest, but later he began to think about it. The size and complexity of Anne's huge estates were closely paralled by his own, but only in acreage. French money would have to water the poor Highland soil and build up the mansions destroyed by war and clan feud. When he returned he would own something, and something more than land. He would own his Macdonald people, not as the irresponsible and wastrel French seigneur bodily owned his peasants, but with a spiritual ownership. He would be the Macdonald of Dundrenan, lord over the unwilling Frasers, for he was the last who carried their blood. Sitting back in the coach, he thought of the woman whose wealth would bring all this about; her money would restock the vanished herds of sheep and cattle for his people, raise a great house on the site of his clan's ancient home and fill it with fine furniture, silver and plate. She was responsible for his inheritance becoming a reality. For that alone his pride would never permit him to forgive her.

On the 24th of October Anne de Bernard was married in the chapel at Charantaise. The church was two centuries older than the great Château; it was small and dark, and full of white and yellow flowers which came from the splendid greenhouses. The Marquise's family maintained their own priest and assistant, but there was only room for a hundred guests in the little church, and Charles's parents, his sister and her own guardian were kneeling immediately behind them, while the rest of the church was full of close friends and some of the more privileged servants like Lady Katharine's Annie Fraser, and the Marquise's old wet nurse who could hardly walk. Outside the sun was streaming down; it was a perfect day, cloudless and warm; within the cool chapel Anne felt cold in spite of the weight of her wedding dress. It was made of white brocade embroidered with silver, and white ermine lined the long train that fell from her shoulders. The veil in which many generations of de Bernards were married covered her face, and a circle of enormous diamond and pearl flowers held it in place. It had taken nearly three hours to dress her after her hair was powdered, from the glittering dress down to her white satin shoes with buckles that blazed with diamonds as she walked. Jeanne and Lady Katharine had spent most of the morning with her; she wore her husband's wedding present round her neck. The chain and the locket with its single sugar-pink diamond was brought to her by Charles's valet, with a formal note in his writing, but the exquisite jewel belonged to his mother, and Anne knew it. They were already married; both had taken their vows, she so quietly that it was done in a whisper, Charles in a clear, almost arrogant, voice. He had put his ring upon her finger, sworn to love and cherish her in fidelity until death, and she had promised to obey him and serve him as long as she lived. He had not once looked near her during the ceremony. Charles too was dressed in white, but a vivid sash of tartan crossed his breast, caught on the shoulder with a Cairngorm brooch, and his breeches were silk tartan. Sir James Macdonald and his wife were both in Highland dress; he wore the eagles' feather of the chief in his bonnet. The nuptial Mass began and bride and groom knelt in front of the altar; while the service proceeded Anne hid her face and prayed. Her parents were married in this same church—the pretty, frivolous little mother she hardly remembered and the unbending father who was only a name to his child. They had not been happy; perhaps her father had loved his bride as passionately as she loved her bridegroom, perhaps he too had prayed for happiness as she was doing, and not known that he would never touch his wife's heart.

The night before the wedding Charles excused himself, and the gossip all over the Château was that he had got drunk and struck his valet while the man was trying to put him to bed. Now it was done; she had accepted the challenge of his indifference, risking all on her determination to change it into love. She glanced at him and saw that he was staring straight ahead, his handsome face as hard as stone. Now the power was his; power to spend her fortune, power to go where he pleased and regulate her movements accordingly. She had no redress against any restrictions he chose to place upon her, no claim upon the law which recognized only the husband's rights and regarded the woman and all her possessions as his chattels once she married him.

At the end of the Mass they knelt again to receive the priest's blessing. ‘And now, my children, leave this holy place in the unity of God's blessing and the sanctity of your married state; love one another and obey God's laws. I will pray for you both.' The priest had known Anne since childhood; he was a kindly old man, singularly uncorrupted by human respect. For a moment the shrewd brown eyes smiled at her, and then they glanced keenly into the face of the man she had married, searching for some sign of emotion. She could tell by the way in which he turned from Charles that he had seen nothing.

At the door they hesitated; there was a long line of servants and tenants waiting for them and Anne blinked in the bright sunshine.

‘Come, Madame. Let us run this gauntlet as quickly as possible.' They were the first words he had spoken to her that day.

There was a long wedding banquet; Anne ate almost nothing. Her steward fussed behind her chair; he had served Madame la Marquise since she was old enough to sit at table and he was worried that she might faint after the long ceremony. She looked as white as her dress.

Suddenly Charles looked up at him over his shoulder. ‘Your ministrations to Madame are disturbing me. Go away!'

‘Charles,' Anne whispered. She saw the steward turn red and still he stood behind her as if her husband had not spoken. ‘Charles, please. I need some wine.…'

‘You need a new steward,' he remarked. ‘I shall find one for you in the morning. I told that one to go and he's still there. He must be growing deaf. Have a little command of yourself even if you haven't over your servants. You can cry as hard as you wish when we're alone.' He raised his glass to his sister who was sitting further down the table watching them and unable to hear what had been said. He did not look at his wife again; his head ached and he felt tired and furiously angry, angry with her because she was beautiful enough to rouse in him a kind of irritable desire, angry with his parents who had married him against his will, angry with everyone sitting round them, celebrating and smirking and wishing them well.

‘James.' Katharine touched her husband's arm. ‘Have you been watching them?'

‘There's little point to it, the thing is done.' He smiled at his wife, trying to give her reassurance. ‘It was a splendid wedding, and if my son can resist a bride like that then he's no Macdonald!'

‘He won't resist her,' Katharine said. ‘Poor child, I only wish he would! James, James, what have we done? Even for Dundrenan and Clandara, isn't the price too high for that unhappy girl to pay?'

‘Her heart was set on it,' he answered. ‘You know it was; she loves him. She was determined to have him.'

‘I cannot bear him,' Katharine said slowly. ‘Can you imagine what it means to a mother to detest her only son? To look at him on his wedding day and not find a single warm feeling towards him in my heart.… Why couldn't he have been like you?' she demanded. ‘Why must he take after your brother? Whenever he looks at me it's Hugh I see; whenever he laughs it's Hugh I hear.…'

‘Yet he's your son, my love,' Sir James reminded her. ‘There must be some of you in him, he can't be all Macdonald.'

‘If there is it's too well hidden for anyone to find it,' she said bitterly. ‘I'm not sure we ought to go to Paris tomorrow; perhaps we should stay for a time in case Anne needs us.'

‘We are going tomorrow,' Sir James said gently. ‘It will be best for Anne, I promise you.'

‘And where is my eager bride? In bed already—not
asleep
, I trust?' Anne had been waiting alone in her room for three hours after they retired from their guests. She had been dressed by her maids in a white night-gown trimmed with four layers of priceless lace, her hair brushed out over her shoulders, and she had spent the first hour walking up and down her room, waiting for the sound of steps, waiting for him to come. At last she climbed into the big canopied bed and wept as she had not done since the night after her mother died. Worn out with tears and emotional fatigue, she fell asleep and that was how Charles found her when at last he came into her bedroom. She looked very childish and innocent lying in the middle of the ornate bed, holding one side of the satin pillow in her arms. He stood beside her, and as he watched she moved uneasily, and the movement exposed her pale breasts under the thin gown. He was in his dressing robe and breeches, and he was just drunk enough to be dangerous to anything or anyone that crossed him.

‘Wake up,' he said loudly.

Anne's eyes opened and then she sat up, drawing the sheets over herself. She looked into the pale mocking face and the narrowed green eyes, and she flushed to her hair.

‘I have waited hours for you,' she said slowly. ‘Now I hope you'll be gentleman enough not to disturb me. I am very tired!'

‘Oh, really?' The narrow eyes became slits and there was an angry glitter in them. ‘I married you this morning, my dear cousin, don't you remember? And I've a
mind
to disturb you, as it happens!'

She made a movement to escape him, but he was too quick for her. For a few desperate moments she tried to fight him, and he felt the scorching pain of her nails on his skin. ‘You little vixen,' he said. ‘You damned shrew—'

He tore the magnificent nightgown from neck to waist and ripped it off her. Then the full weight and strength of his body stilled her struggles and she submitted and was mastered, the tears streaming down her face as the moment of possession came, bringing with it unbearable pleasure and pain. She lost consciousness for a few seconds, and then the crushing arms released her. When she opened her eyes he was still holding her, but gently now.

‘You're my wife,' he said softly. ‘I'll trouble you very seldom, but when I do, by God I hope you've learned not to say no to me!' Then he withdrew from her and turning on his side he went to sleep.

There were no tears left in her then; she was bruised and hurt, trembling with weakness; exalted and horrified at the same time at the nature of the lesson he had taught her.

Before the dawn came the touch of his hands awoke her again, and she knew better now than to draw back from him. His second love-making was so different from the first that she could hardly believe the lover who possessed her then was the same man as the jeering violater of some hours before. Not a word did he speak; he took her in silence and he subjected her to the expertise gained in the arms of many women until her senses swam and incoherent cries came from her lips as they were opened by his own. When the culmination came it was a shared ascent, explosive but controlled, completely different from that other brutal act of domination.

Anne put her arms around his neck and fell asleep against his breast, not daring to speak for fear of breaking the spell which seemed to have encompassed them. In his arms she felt very soft and light, very pliable compared to the stiff, resistant body which he had overcome by force the first time. She was different from Louise; Louise entwined herself like a serpent when they were in repose together, unwilling to lose the slightest contact or abjure the last faint sensation of enjoyment. His wife slept in his arms like a child that had been loved and comforted. He felt content himself at that moment; surprised, but contented and very much inclined to hold her close and sleep. He had never felt like that with any woman before.

‘Madame is very happy,' the little maid Marie-Thérèse whispered. The senior girl frowned at her. It was not proper to discuss their mistress but she could not resist it that morning. She had helped to put the pale-faced bride to bed; she and the others had listened for hours in the ante-rooms for the bridegroom who had not come. And when he did the word had already reached them through his servants that he had been drinking. And yet this morning the Marquise was transformed. Her beauty bloomed; she smiled and sang as they dressed her.