Виктория Холт: It began in Vauxhall Gardens

She could laugh to herself; she was far away from the sewing room. She went on past the cottages to the auberge, where he sat, smiling at her, without waiting for her to drop her sabot. He said: "You speak English so beautifully. I should have thought you were English. You shall leave the convent and come away with me." Melisande was remembering that last year a woman had come to the Convent and taken Anne-Marie away; the children had watched her leave in a beautiful carriage. "That is her aunt," said the children. "She is going to live with her rich aunt and have a satin dress trimmed with fur." Ever since, Melisande had waited for a rich woman to come and take her away, but a man would do very well instead.

The door opened and Sister Eugenie came in. She went to the table and whispered a few words to Sister Emilie. Then Sister Emilie went out and left Melisande with Sister Eugenie.

Sister Eugenie looked at the shirt which Melisande had been stitching. She pointed with a thin finger to the stitches which were too long and too crooked.

"Take this book and read it aloud," she said. "Give me the shirt. I will finish it whilst you read."

Melisande took the book. It was the Pilgrim's Progress in English. She read slowly, enjoying the story of the man with his burden; but she would rather have heard the story of Melisande, of how she came to the Convent when she was a baby, and how a rich woman —or a man—came one day to take her away to a beautiful house where she spent the rest of her life eating sweetmeats and wearing a blue dress trimmed with fur.

Madame Lefevre saw the two Sisters coming towards the auberge. She paused to look through the window. Armand, sitting at the table, rose to greet the Sisters. Madame heard his loud Bonjour and the quiet ones of the Sisters. Armand was flattering and gallant as he was to all women. "I am happy to see you here. Our little inn is at your service."

Madame did not wait for their reply; she went downstairs to see them for herself. She greeted them with warmth as Armand had done.

"They come to see the English gentleman," said Armand.

"Alas!" said Madame.

"I have told the Sisters that he left this morning."

Madame nodded. It was sad indeed; she was filled with melancholy at the thought. "He decided last night," she explained. "He came to me and he said: 'Madame, I must depart to-morrow.' He went off early in the coach."

The Sisters nodded. They were secretly pleased; that much was clear. They thanked the Lefevres and went slowly away.

Armand lifted his shoulders; he was afraid to meet Madame's eyes, for he feared he was responsible for the Englishman's departure. He would not tell Madame of their little conversation.

But he would be back, Armand soothed himself. He would sit here and watch the children, and his eyes would linger on the little Melisande. She was English; he was English; that was good enough for Armand.

Madame stood for a while conjecturing why the nuns had called; then she turned and went into the inn, for she had her business to attend to.

Armand returned to his seat and his wine. One of the stall-keepers on his way to the market came by with a basket of produce to sell in the square; he called Hold, to Armand and sat down for a while to drink a glass of wine.

The Convent bell began to ring. It would soon be midday. He heard the children's sabots on the cobbles. Sister Therese came in sight with the crocodile. Therese peered about, calling a greeting. "Bonjour, Madame."

"Bonjour, Monsieur."

"Bonjour, mes enfants"

The children wound their way along by the river, their feet noisy in protest because the day was hot, and perhaps some of them remembered that yesterday the little Melisande had taken off her sabots and walked barefoot.

And there she was, eagerly looking towards the auberge. Looking for the bird who had flown, thought Armand. Ah, he has gone, my little one. You and I have driven him away.

The children passed on. Armand talked with his companion of the affairs of the town.

Life flowed on, as it had yesterday.

As the coach trundled along to Paris, the Englishman was thinking the same uneasy thoughts which always disturbed him when he made this journey. Each time he made it, he assured himself it would be the last. Yet again and again he came. He was drawn there by the quaint figure of a girl in ill-fitting black clothes with marvellous green eyes which brought him memories.

What use was there in making these journeys ? None. What did he get from them but the anguish of memories, the reminder of an episode which was best forgotten and which he could have shelved with an easy conscience? He was rich, and wise enough to know that the most reliable salve for an uneasy conscience which the world could provide was money. He need never have concerned himself with Melisande again. He should have resisted the impulse to see her in the first place. If he had, there would have been none of these pointless journeys. And he had betrayed himself. That was disquieting. An inquisitive old innkeeper, on whom he had looked as a useful source of information, had probed his secret; and it was not what a man did that could bring trouble; it was what others discovered of his doings which chilled the stomach.

Sir Charles Trevenning was a man who rarely betrayed himself. He led a satisfactory life, missed nothing that he wished for, and if what he wished for happened to be something which it would be unwise for the world to know of, the world did not know. Yet he had betrayed himself to a humble innkeeper.

Such made uneasy thinking. Once before he had been caught off his guard, and what had followed? Pleasure, yes; delight, he might say if he were given to such fantastic expression; but surely such pleasure, such delight, had to be paid for. He had suffered some anguish, some misgiving, a moment of panic; but Sir Charles was not a man to pay more for a thing than that thing was worth.

When he had sat very straight, very controlled, at the table outside the Lefevres* inn, his outward appearance had given no indication of his inner turmoil which had been aroused by the little girl from the convent. When her green eyes had looked into his he had felt his calm expression cracking, as though it had been a shell. It was alarming. A moment outside a humble inn linked itself with another moment under the trees in Vauxhall Gardens; a humble child looked at him as a young woman had looked at him; and Sir Charles was aware of the weakness within him.

He, squire and landowner from Cornwall, magistrate and one of the most highly respected gentlemen of the Duchy, a man of wide financial interests in the City of London, whose friends in the country and town were of high social standing, had no right to be sitting outside an inn in a quiet French town, talking to an innkeeper. He should never have sat beneath the trees of Vauxhall. Had he wished to visit a pleasure garden, it should have been Ranelagh, to which he might have gone in his carriage with a party of friends. Looking back it seemed as though some unaccountable impulse had led him to Vauxhall, where persons of high degree did not go; where, it was said, one did not meet a creature above the station of cheesemonger. And had he not gone to Vauxhall he would never have sat outside a mean little auberge, talking to a bibulous, garrulous innkeeper.

So here he was now riding in a coach among humble people, people who gabbled, gesticulated and sweated. He, the fastidious one, forced to that which offended his fastidiousness and yet was somehow irresistible. It was disturbing in the extreme, for it was as though he did not know himself.

He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the vulgar woman in the corner seat of the coach. Her sprigged muslin gown with the vulgar leg-of-mutton sleeves was none too clean; her bodice was laced to bring her bosom into prominence; her monstrously large hat took up too much room in the coach; and he disliked the glances she threw at him.