Виктория Холт - King of the Castle

I saw the effect those words had on him and I went on triumphantly.

“She kept notebooks… little diaries. Nounou has had them all this time. Nounou knew … and she said nothing. She allowed you to be blamed. It’s monstrous. But now everyone shall know.”

“Dallas, my dear, you are excited.”

“Excited! I have discovered this secret. I can now show this … admission … to the world. No one else will dare say that you killed Francoise.”

He laid his hand over mine.

“Tell me what you have discovered,” he said.

“I was determined to find out. I knew of the notebooks. Nounou had showed me some. So I went to her room. She was asleep, her cupboard was open … so I took the last one. I had guessed that there might be some clue there but I had not thought I should find the answer so clear so indisputable.”

“What did you find?”

“She killed herself because of the fear of madness. Her mother was mad and her father told her this when he was rambling after his stroke. He told her how he tried to kill her mother … how he had failed … how much better it would have been if he had. Don’t you see? She was so unworldly. That comes through in her diaries. She would accept. fatalistically what was put into her mind . But it’s here. as clear as you could wish. Never again shall anyone accuse you of murder. “

“I am glad you found this. Now there need be no secrets between us.

Perhaps I should have told you. I think I should have done in time.

But I was afraid that even you might have betrayed by some look . by some gesture . “

I looked at him searchingly.

“Of course I knew that you had not killed her. You don’t think for a moment I believed that absurd gossip….”

He took my face in his hands and kissed me.

“I like to think,” he said, ‘that you doubted me and loved me just the same. “

“Perhaps it’s true,” I admitted.

“I can’t understand Nounou. How could she have known and kept quiet?”

“For the same reason that I did.”

“As… you did?”

“I knew what happened. She left a note for me, explaining.”

“You knew she took her own life, and why, and yet you let them …”

“Yes, I knew and I let them.”

“But why … why? It’s so unfair … so cruel…”

“I was used to being gossiped about… slandered, I deserved most of it. You know I warned you you would not marry a saint.”

“But… murder.”

“It’s your secret now, Dallas.”

“Mine. But I’m going to make this known …”

“No. There’s something you’ve forgotten.”

“What?”

“Genevieve.”

I stared at him in understanding.

“Yes, Genevieve,” he went on.

“You know her nature. It is wild, excitable. How easy it would be to send her the way her grandmother went. Since you have been here she has changed a little. Oh, not a great deal. We can’t expect it… but I think that one of the easiest ways to send a highly-strung person toppling into madness would be the continual watching, the suggestion that there is some seed in her which could develop. I don’t want her watched in that way. I want her to have every chance to grow up normally. Francoise took her life for the sake of the child she was to have; I at least can face a little gossip for the sake of our daughter. You understand now, Dallas?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I’m glad, for now there are no secrets between us.”

I looked across the grass to the pond. It was hot now but the afternoon was already late and the evenings were drawing in. It was only a year ago that I had come here. So much, I thought, to happen in one short year.

“You are silent,” he said.

“Tell me what you are thinking.”

“I was thinking of all that has happened since I first came here.

Nothing is as it seemed when I came to the chateau. when I saw you all for the first time. I saw you so differently from what you are . and now I find you capable of this . great sacrifice. “

“My darling, you are too dramatic. This … sacrifice has cost me little. What do I care for what is said of me? You know I am arrogant enough to snap my fingers at the world and say: think what you will.

But although I snap my fingers at the world there is one whose good opinion is of the greatest importance to me . That is why I sit here basking in her approval, allowing her to set the halo on my head. I know of course that she will soon discover it was an illusion. but it’s pleasant to wear it for a while. “

“Why do you always want to denigrate yourself?”

“Because I’m afraid beneath my arrogance.”

“Afraid. You. Of what?”

“That you will stop loving me.”

“And what of me? Don’t you think I have a similar fear?”

“It is comforting to know you can be capable of folly now and then.”

“I think,” I said, ‘that this is the happiest moment of my life. “

He put an arm about me and we sat close together for some minutes looking over the peaceful garden.

“Let’s make it last,” he said.

He took the notebook from me and tore off the cover. Then he struck a match and applied it to the leaves.

I watched the blue and yellow flame creep over the childish handwriting.

Soon there was nothing left of Francoise’s confession.

He said: “It was unwise to keep it. Will you explain to Nounou?”

I nodded. I picked up the cover of the notebook and slipped it into my pocket.

Together we watched a piece of blackened paper tossed across the lawn.

I thought of the future of whispers that would now and then reach me, of the wildness of Genevieve, of the complex nature of the man I had chosen to love. The future was a challenge. But then I had always been one to accept a challenge.