Philippa Carr - Zipporah's Daughter

‘And Léon Blanchard told you he was going to be in the town today?’

She nodded. ‘I wanted you to see and hear him. I wanted you to know how things were. I have been longing to tell you for so long. I wanted you to know that I was your sister.’

Tante Berthe had come into the room. She said: ‘There is nothing much left in the kitchens. I have made a little soup. What is the matter?’

I said: ‘We have been into town. Léon Blanchard was there preaching revolution. They will be coming to the château.’

Tante Berthe turned pale. ‘Mon Dieu,’ she murmured.

Lisette said: ‘Lottie has been telling me a tale. She says I am not the Comte’s daughter. As if I did not always know I was. She says the Comte did not know me until I was three or four years old. It isn’t true, is it? It isn’t true?’

Tante Berthe looked steadily at Lisette. She said: ‘The Comte took you in because he was a good and kind gentleman. You and I owe him much. But he was not your father. Your father was the son of a tradesman and he worked in his father’s shop. Your mother told me this before you were born when I came to Paris to try to persuade her to return home. She couldn’t, of course, as she was to have a child. I helped her through her confinement. She insisted on keeping you and this she tried to do through her needlework. She couldn’t make ends meet and started having gentlemen friends who helped her to pay the rent and feed her child.’

‘You mean she was a … prostitute!’

‘No, no,’ cried Tante Berthe fiercely. ‘She only had friends whom she liked … and they helped her because they wanted to. The Comte was one of them. When she knew herself to be dying she asked me to come to her. She wanted me to take care of you. The Comte called when I was there. He was concerned about your mother’s health and he talked to me about the future. He told me that when he had visited her he had discovered that she had a little girl hidden away. He was touched by this. He thought your mother a brave woman. When she died he offered me the post of housekeeper to the château and allowed me to bring you with me.’

‘Lies!’ cried Lisette. ‘All lies!’

‘It’s the truth,’ said Tante Berthe. ‘I swear it in the name of the Virgin.’

Lisette looked as though she were going to burst into tears. I knew that the dream of a lifetime was crumbling about her.

She went on shouting: ‘It is lies … All lies.’

The door opened and Sophie came in.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘I could hear the shouting in Armand’s room.’

‘Sophie,’ I said, ‘we are in acute danger. The mob will come to the château at dusk. Léon Blanchard is bringing them.’

‘Léon … !’

I said gently: ‘What Dickon suspected was true. Léon Blanchard was not a real tutor. He was here to spy for the Orléanists. The Duc de Soissonson was one of them, too. We have just heard him inciting the mob to march on the château. When he comes with them you will see for yourself.’

‘Léon?’ she repeated in a dazed way.

‘Oh Sophie,’ I said. ‘There has been such deceit. Terrible things are happening everywhere in France. How can we know who is with us and who against us?’

‘I don’t believe that Léon … ’ she began and Lisette began to laugh hysterically.

‘Then I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘Léon brought me to Lottie. He was my lover before that and when we were here … and still is. You see, even though your father acknowledged you as his daughter, you did not have all your own way. Léon, whom you wanted, was my lover. Charles, who was Lottie’s husband, was my lover. He wasn’t so particular in the bedroom whether my father called me daughter or not. But I am the Comte’s daughter. They are going to try to prove that I was not, but I am, I tell you. I am. I am of noble birth … as noble as either of you. We all have the same father … no matter what anyone says.’

Sophie was looking at me helplessly. I went to her and put my arm about her.

‘It’s true isn’t it,’ she said, ‘that Léon cared about me? He did care a little.’

‘He was here on a mission,’ I said.

‘But he was in love with Lisette all the time. He was only pretending … ’

‘People do pretend sometimes, Sophie. We were all deceived.’

‘And I blamed you. I blamed you for making up tales about him … tales which were not true. I said your lover murdered Armand that you might have my father’s wealth. I said all this of you, Lottie, and I tried to believe it, but I think something inside me rejected it. I didn’t really believe it. Perhaps I always knew that Léon could not have cared for me. It was the same with Charles. When I found that flower in his apartment I started to hate you.’

‘I was never there, Sophie. I lost the flower he bought for me. It was not my flower you found.’

‘What is all this about a flower?’ asked Lisette.

I turned to her. ‘What does it matter now? It was all long ago. Charles bought a flower for me in the street and Sophie found one like it in his bedroom.’

‘A red peony,’ said Lisette. Then she started to laugh. There was an element of hysteria in that laugh. ‘It was I who left the flower behind, Sophie. I dropped it in Charles’s apartment. I borrowed it from Lottie’s room because it matched my dress, I remember. I forgot about it. It was only an artificial flower anyway. It is proof to you, Sophie, that he was my lover. I had his child, you know. Yes, Louis-Charles is his son.’

‘Stop it, Lisette,’ I cried. ‘Stop it.’

‘Why should I? This is the moment of truth. Let us stop deceiving ourselves. Let us all show what we really are.’

The tears were running down Sophie’s cheeks making her hood wet. I put my arms round her and she clung to me.

‘Forgive, Lottie,’ she said. ‘Forgive … ’

I said: ‘When people know they understand. There is nothing to forgive, Sophie.’ I kissed her scarred cheek. ‘Dear Sophie,’ I said, ‘I am glad we are sisters again.’

Lisette and Tante Berthe watched us. Tante Berthe’s practical mind was trying to work out what we should do. Lisette still seemed bemused.

‘You should really get out,’ said Tante Berthe. ‘Perhaps we all should. You certainly, Madame Lottie.’

‘And what of the men?’ I asked.

‘We can’t move them.’

‘I shall stay here,’ I said.

Tante Berthe shook her head and Lisette said: ‘You and I have nothing to fear, Tante Berthe. You are a servant and although I am aristocrat Léon Blanchard is my friend. He will see that I am safe.’

‘Be silent’, cried Tante Berthe. She shook her head and turned away muttering: ‘What is best? What can be done?’

‘There is nothing,’ I replied, ‘but to wait.’

We waited through the long afternoon. The heat was intense. It seemed to me that I was seeing everything with especial clarity. Perhaps that was how it was when one looked Death in the face. I had seen the mob at Léon Blanchard’s meeting and could picture those people marching on the château with the bloodlust in their eyes. I thought of my mother’s stepping out of the shop and finding herself in the midst of such a crowd. I pictured the carriage as I had so often before. I saw the frightened horses. What had she felt in those horrific moments? I had heard of the people’s violence when they had smashed up the town and I knew that human life meant little to them. And as the daughter of the Comte d’Aubigné I was one of the enemy. I had heard that they had hanged one of the merchants from a lamp-post because they said he had put up the price of bread.

I had never before come face to face with death; but I knew that I was facing it now. I was aware of a light-headedness. I felt strangely remote. Fear was there, yes, but not fear of death but of what must happen before it. I knew now how people felt in their condemned cells awaiting the summons.