The Victory (14 page)

Madame Chouflon, perceiving that Héloïse had not
succeeded in clarifying matters, engaged Sophie across the
table in an earnest dialogue in French. Héloïse took up her
needle again and said casually to no-one in particular, 'Of
course, there are other things besides wickedness which Our
Lady does not like. There is also folly, and ingratitude. It
would be very foolish and ungrateful, for instance, to waste
one's time moping and sighing and staring out of the window,
when one should be working.’

Mathilde quickly removed her gaze from the window and
picked up her needle, a red spot of resentment burning in
each cheek. Héloïse looked at her with sympathy. 'You think I
don't understand,' she said, divining her ward's thoughts
without difficulty. 'You think it is so long since I was fourteen
that I cannot possibly remember what it was like.’

Mathilde compressed her lips, but did not look up. She was
on the verge of womanhood, and was full of doubts and fears
and expectations, and didn't know what to do about any of
them; and to make it worse she was in the throes of an un
spoken and unrequitable passion for Antrobus, the curate. He
was a pompous young man, full of long words and his own
importance who, because he was rather handsome and was
distantly connected to a great family, had high hopes of
marrying the local squire's daughter.

It would be useless, of course, to point out any of those
things to Mathilde, whose passion had everything to do with
her age and very little to do with its object. 'It is a great pity,'
Héloïse said, 'that you do not have more company of your
own age. Perhaps I ought to have sent you to school.'

‘
Oh no, madame,' Mathilde said quickly, shocked at the
thought of being torn from the parish and proximity of her
idol. 'I don't want to go away anywhere.'

‘
Nevertheless,' Héloïse went on, 'in a year or two, we will
probably have to move to a town. It would be of no use to
bring you out here, would it? You would have no-one to dance
with but Colonel Spencer's sons.’

Mathilde was successfully diverted. 'Shall I have a coming-
out ball, madame, like Lizzie Spencer? And a pink gown and flowers?'

‘
Not pink,' Madame Chouflon cried out at once, shocked to
the depth of her mantuamaker's soul. 'Not with your red
hair!'

‘
I hope you will have a much better ball than Lizzie
Spencer's.' Héloïse said. 'If I can arrange it with Madame de Chelmsford, I hope we may be able to have it in the ballroom
in Chelmsford House, which you have never seen, of course,
but which is an exact model of the Galerie des Glaces at
Versailles.'

‘
I have never seen that, either,' Mathilde said; but she had
heard it described often enough and now saw herself, in her
imagination, dancing down a set with Mr Antrobus to the
admiration and envy of all. Despite old Flon's protests, every
mirror reflected her gown of pink silk, the same colour as
Miss Spencer's, and the pink roses in her hair.

‘
One's first ball,' Héloïse sighed.
'On ne l'oublie jamais!
Mine
was at Chenonceau, before the war. The ballroom there
is built over the water, on arches. At midnight they put out all
the lights and had fireworks on the river, and we watched
from the windows.
C'était un spectacle merveilleux!’

Mathilde had heard the story before many times, but never
tired of it. 'What was your gown like? Who did you dance
with?' she asked, resting her elbows on the table in the way
that Ron expressly forbade because it made them rough and
ugly. But before she could protest, or Héloïse answer, Stephen
came in.

‘
I'm back, my lady,' he announced. 'Both ponies are shod
and fit to go.'

‘What about the split in Vega's hoof?' Héloïse enquired.

The smith said it's nothing serious. He's cut it back, and
put the nails in so as to hold it together, but he says I should keep an eye on it, and take him back in a fortnight to have it
pared again. Did you want me to walk up the butcher's, my
lady? I understand there was some trouble over the steak.'

‘
I'll come and speak to Monsieur Barnard about it. Has the
rain stopped?'

‘
Yes, my lady, and the cloud's breaking up from the south
west. It looks as though we'll have a fine afternoon. If it stays
dry, I can get on with mending the henhouse roof.'

‘
You do everything so well, Stephen,' Héloïse said admi
ringly, and he smirked a little, trying to maintain an expres
sion of lordly indifference to compliment. 'Would you harness
the ponies, please? Mathilde and Sophie are much in need of
some fresh air. We shall go for a little drive before dinner.’

Sophie jumped up and clapped her hands for pleasure, and
Mathilde gave her guardian a smile of direct gratitude.

Tun upstairs with Marie, children, and put on your
bonnets,' Flon instructed.

Héloïse, on her way to the kitchen, added innocently, 'I think Mathilde ought to wear her new one with the yellow
ribbon. Then if we should happen to pass anyone interesting
in the village, she will know she is looking her best.’

*

Cygnus and Vega, the cream-coloured arabs whom Héloïse
had named after stars because nothing else was as beautiful as
they, were very fresh, and only good manners kept them from
cantering as they set off, drawing the pretty little park phaeton along the road towards Kilburn. They curved their necks
and trotted fast, lifting their knees showily, their muzzles touching, and the gold-and-coral ornaments on their brow
bands jumped and glittered in the sunshine.

The world was delicious after the rain. There were puddles
everywhere, looking like fallen pieces of the flax-blue sky. A
warm, earthy, weed-fragrant miasma rose from the damp
ditches, a green and dim purple composite of cow-parsley and
nettle, mullein, loosestrife, hemlock and bryony. Foxgloves
lifted their exotic spotted throats and trembled under the
weight of visiting bees, and from the higher, drier edges of the
fields came the beckoning fragrance of thyme and chamo
mile. Every leaf in every hedge was dazzling with fat, silver
drops, and beyond them the unharrowed crops were gay with
scabious and meadow-rue and avens, fumitory and charlock,
scarlet poppies, and the shocking blue of the cranesbill.

Soon they were trotting into Kilburn, where the strong
light after days of greyness made every house look freshly
painted, and the roofs steamed gently in the heat. Here
Héloïse was forced to pull up. In the centre of the village the
local squire, with the aid of two substantial farmers mounted
selfconsciously on plough-horses, was drilling a platoon of
local volunteers. Every housewife, child and idler in the
village had gathered to watch, and even the innkeeper of the
Cross Keys was standing in his doorway in a dazzling apron,
philosophical in the anticipation of good business when the
parade was over. The blacksmith had emerged from his
private Avernus, but his attention was distracted by the
thrillingly white forearms of the two housemaids who were
leaning out of the attic windows of the house opposite.

It was a scene Héloïse had witnessed in many a village in
the past weeks. The whole country seemed in a ferment over
Buonaparte's reported boast that he would ‘jump the ditch'
and conquer England. Volunteers had flocked to take up
arms, and the coastal regions were busy devising ingenious
defences. Hatred of the First Consul was high, and no
calumny was too vile for him. Handbills pinned up in public
places exposed his villainy in violent language and crude
cartoons, and rhymes and songs about him proliferated like
fleas.

The squire, recognising Hérse's rig, rode over to her and
lifted his hat. 'My dear ma'am, how kind of you to honour
our little spectacle with your presence! Not a bad turn-out, though I say it myself. A little rough and ready, but they're
learning, they're learning. Let Boney try and invade York
shire, and he'll find out what sort of a people he's taken on!'

‘
Quite right, Sir John,' said Héloïse cheerfully, not thinking it necessary to disabuse the old gentleman. 'I am sure they are
all brave as lions.'

‘
Well, they are, ma'am, they are. And an Englishman in
the field's worth ten Frogs any day,' he said eagerly, and then
suddenly realising what he had said, he turned a dull red and
stammered, 'I mean — dash it, ma'am, no offence meant, I
promise you! It's this feller Boney we all want to teach a
lesson. You're a victim of his yourself, ma'am — we all know
that. Your sort wouldn't support him, never thought it for a
moment —'

‘
It's quite all right, Sir John,' Héloïse smiled, intervening
before he got himself into worse difficulties. 'I am not
offended in the least. In any case, you know, I am only half
French, though I was brought up in Paris. My father was an Englishman.'

‘
Was in Paris once m'self,' Sir John said gruffly, with a
grateful look. 'Back in '72. Not a bad sort of place at all,
really.'

‘
Your men are drilling beautifully,' Héloïse replied in kind.

‘
Drill's all right, ma'am, but when is the Government
going to issue arms, that's what I want to know? Had the
damned cheek to offer us pikes, you know. Pikes! Refused
'em, straight off. Told them it was a damned insult to York
shiremen. Pikes! Be wanting us to fight Boney with our bare
hands next. Not that we couldn't,' he added hastily. 'Fight
and win.'

‘
I'm sure you would, Sir John,' Héloïse said. ‘Ah, your men
are making a little space on the road. Perhaps I can get by.
My ponies are fresh after all this rain, you know, and won't
stand for long.' The ponies were standing quietly at that
moment, but Héloïse was worried about the restlessness of her
passengers. For the past few minutes Mathilde had been
having difficulty suppressing a fit of giggles; it would not be
long before they affected Sophie too.

‘
Of course, of course, ma'am. I'll make a way for you. Handsome animals,' Sir John added, eyeing them keenly,
‘John Brown, step aside there, will you? Your servant,
ma'am.'

‘
Good morning, Sir John,' Héloïse said with a grave nod,
and gave the office to the ponies, who justified her by tossing
their heads and springing forward eagerly with little snorts of excitement.

On their return home they were met at the gate by
Stephen, who was looking, most unusually, rather upset and
flustered. Stephen had come to Héloïse when she first moved
into Plaisir, and had set about making himself indispensable.
He could turn his hand to almost anything, and prided
himself on being imperturbable; so it must, she concluded
with foreboding, be something very serious indeed to have
shaken his self-possession.