The boy watched her under cover of his arm, and, when he saw she had forgotten him, and looked on the horizon, he glanced stealthily at his seasick family and, seeing himself unobserved, stretched out his hand, and in a flash the coin was in his pocket. He leant back again, feigning sleep, while his sister—disturbed by his first movement—bent over him in consolation, running her hand through his curling chestnut hair.

  Mary Anne hummed a tune under her breath, and tapped her ridiculously small foot upon the deck. She was thinking of the life of vagabondage ended, and how she could at last afford to please herself instead of pleasing men. These last years had been insufferable, and the position of discarded mistress an intolerable one. There was no greater degradation. To be courted and flattered and welcomed in every house, servants and friends at her command, possessing power in no common degree, and then to be neglected and thrust aside, yawned at openly, insulted by menials, badgered by shopkeepers, disdained by the very friends who kissed her hand before… no, that could never be forgiven. Never, never more, as long as she should live. She had made him suffer already, and he should suffer again. How she loathed him now, his red blotched face, his great paunch, his purple bulbous nose! How she loathed him, and his brothers, and the whole family; the thickness of their speech, their gross habits, the very manner of their eating, drinking, sleeping…

  Oh, God in Heaven, what she had endured! But it was over now, and behind her, and beyond lay a new country, a new world in which to travel.

  She would amuse herself, and relax for the first time in her life. She had got what she wanted: the annuity for herself and Ellen; a commission in a regiment of the line for George. Her debts were all paid, her furniture sold. The agreement was drawn up, signed, and witnessed. Cox and Greenwood would see to her affairs. Chichester had stood by her to the end.

  And, whatever happened, she had the trump card still. She smiled, and patted the lining of her muff. Yes, there they were, most cunningly and successfully hidden; it was surprising that such a bulky package could be so well concealed. And how revealing were the contents, how damning to the reputation of the writer! She caressed them almost lovingly through the lining of her muff, knowing by heart the tinted paper, the crest upon the envelope, the ugly sprawling hand. They would represent another little income the day she needed it, those dozen letters of the Duke of York that had by some freak of fortune escaped the incurious fire.

  Part Two

  4

  La Maison d’Éducation in the rue Neuve St Étienne was a grim, sober building sandwiched amongst old houses that had once been gay, but were now untenanted, the original owners having fled during the Revolution, never to return.

  Once the salons had rung with laughter, and the passages echoed with music and song; the rustle of silk gowns and the pretty tap-tap of high heels had sounded from room to room, and long after midnight link-boys had run about the cobbled street below bearing torches and flares to light Madame la Comtesse home. There had been gaiety then, in those days before the storm; a tinkle of viola and spinet, the trill of compliments charming if insincere, a flow of conversation that meant everything and nothing, an intriguing atmosphere of powder, patch, and mask, of laughter behind the hand.

  The bubble burst with the Revolution, and all the froth and superficial sweetness vanished as though it had never been; even the walls of the old houses darkened with suspicion, the windows staring and unlit as though some spy crouched there, his ear against the wall, afraid of his own shadow.

  There was a stain upon the houses, and a blood trail in the street, and the anguish and suffering of the Terror blew its cold panic breath into the stones of the buildings, freezing the poor bewildered ghosts who wandered there.

  When the drums rolled for Napoleon, and the flags became banners in the air, there was a movement in the houses as though they would wake again; a window opened to receive the sound, and a new draught, borne by a new wind, hummed into the passages. The alarm was false, though, and the houses sank back into decay. The old gaiety could never return again; the eighteenth century had gone for ever. The Bourbons who followed the Emperor were like puppet monarchs with dummy crowns upon their heads, and there was something ridiculous, almost shameful, in the attempt to rekindle the trodden fires, to resurrect the dead, to drag the follies of the Trianon and the glories of Versailles into the sober bourgeois eighteen-twenties. It was striking the wrong note at a party, forcing the unwilling guests to act charades. The costumes were worn and out of date, and no one had the talent or the flair, no one wished to play.

  So the houses in the rue St Etienne remained shabby and forlorn, and some became offices, and some were pulled down, and one became a warehouse, and No. 8 became a Maison d’Éducation under the able supervision of a Madame Pousard.

  Here the daughters of the new society studied German and Italian and English, dabbled in water-colours, and strung embroidered silks, hammered or tinkled upon the piano according to their nimble fingers, and in the privacy of their own rooms chatted and giggled as young girls have always done.

  Madame la Directrice considered herself lucky when she obtained the services of Mademoiselle Louise Busson du Maurier as English teacher. She spoke the language fluently, having spent her childhood in London. She had returned to France at the age of fifteen, and though, like all the returned émigrés, she was a little proud, a little inclined to consider herself a member of the departed noblesse, it did not matter very much; it was easily forgiven. She was so gentle, so tender-hearted, and such a favourite with the pupils. She had a tremendous sense of decorum, most appropriate to her position as governess, and was deeply religious into the bargain.

  ‘If it had been possible, madame,’ she had explained to the Directrice on entering the pension, ‘I would have taken vows and entered the Convent of the Sacré Cœur. I know that the only true happiness is to be found in a life devoted to the Seigneur. Perhaps, in the years to come, I shall be able to do so. For the present I must earn my living and help to support my family. I must confess that I was not brought up to work, and never for a moment believed it would be necessary.’

  ‘May I enquire your circumstances, mademoiselle?’

  Mademoiselle Busson du Maurier (the tag du Maurier surely a little ridiculous in these days when property meant nothing at all, thought the Directrice) sighed and shook her head.

  ‘We were greatly disappointed when we returned to France,’ she admitted. ‘My father had expected much more would be done for him. The glass factory founded by my grandfather was destroyed and our château in ruins. No one wished to see us, or even remembered us. It broke my father’s heart.’

  ‘Twenty years is a long time to remain in exile, mademoiselle,’ said the Directrice coldly. Her husband had been commissar at St Denis, and she was a staunch Republican at heart. She had little sympathy with these returned émigrés who fled from their country in moments of danger and then expected to be welcomed home with open arms.

  ‘So you received no reparation?’ she added.

  The English teacher produced a sheet of parchment.

  ‘Nothing but this,’ she said bitterly, ‘and we are supposed to smile and be grateful. There are six of us, Madame Pousard, besides my mother, and this is all we have in the world, now my father is dead.’

  The Directrice took the paper from her and read:

  ‘J’ai l’honneur de vous prévenir, mademoiselle, que le Roi, voulant vous donner une preuve de sa bienveillance et récompenser en vous le dévouement et les services de votre famille, a daigné vous accorder une pension annuelle de deux cents francs. Cette pension, qui courra du premier janvier mil huit cent seize, sera payée au Trésor de la liste civile (aux Tuileries), de trois mois en trois mois, après que la présente lettre y aura été enregistrée, sur la présentation de votre certificat de vie.

  ‘J’ai l’honneur d’être, mademoiselle, votre très humble et très obeissant serviteur,

  ‘Le Directeur-général, ayant le Portefeuille,

  ‘COMTE DE PRADELY.

  ‘Paris, le 10 mai, 1816.’

  ‘Two hundred francs is two hundred francs,’ said the Directrice, handing back the paper. ‘Better that than to have lost your head under the guillotine. It seems to me that the émigrés do not do so badly.’

  Mademoiselle Busson was silent. She thought of her father, exiled in England with his heart in Sarthe, returning at last to his home and finding all destroyed; then pinching and scraping that his children might live, and dying at last, a broken schoolmaster, at Tours.

  ‘And the rest of your family, how do they employ themselves?’

  ‘My eldest brother, Robert, is in London, madame; a clerk in the City. Jacques works at Hamburg in a bank. The two youngest live here in Paris with my mother, in the rue de la Lune, and it is for their sake that I wish to teach English here at your pension.’

  ‘And the sixth? Did you not mention another brother?’

  A shadow crossed the English teacher’s face. ‘Yes. I have another brother. Louis-Mathurin. Unfortunately, he has gone against all our wishes and is studying to become a professional singer.’

  ‘Perhaps he will make his fortune.’

  ‘Hardly likely, madame. He is careless, inconsequent, always in debt. You can understand that it is very hard for us, his family, seeing him waste himself in a career that can lead nowhere. He has made an impossible choice…. A Busson du Maurier singing for his bread….’

  Madame la Directrice gazed thoughtfully at the young governess. Monsieur Perét was getting rather old and deaf. She knew she would have to make a change in the near future. If she could obtain the services of the English teacher’s brother… a few francs for every lesson; doubtless he would be glad of the money. She herself would be in pocket over the affair.

  ‘Naturally you could not bear to have a brother upon the stage,’ she said complacently. ‘Brought up as you appear to have been, and a strict Catholic too, the disgrace would be irredeemable. However, there is nothing dishonourable in teaching, as you realise yourself. If you would care to mention to your brother that I am looking for a singing master—the pay is small, of course…’

  Mademoiselle Busson flushed all over her face.

  ‘You are very kind, madame,’ she said. ‘When I see Louis next I will suggest it to him. But I am a little doubtful—he is so independent.’

  The Directrice shrugged her shoulders. ‘As he wishes, of course. I can get the services of a hundred masters. It was merely the idea of doing you a kindness. Good morning, mademoiselle. I hope you will find your pupils well behaved.’ The English teacher was dismissed with a wave of the hand.

  ‘It is a little hard,’ reflected Mademoiselle Louise, as she opened page nine of the English grammar before a row of shining faces, ‘that here I am obliged to give lessons in order not to starve in the streets, when other women, of my birth and position, are leading a life of leisure in their own châteaux, preparing for marriage with a marquis or a duke. And Louis-Mathurin, who should be director of his own glass factory, has sunk to painting his face and prostituting his talent for a handful of silver. I must learn to be humble; I must conquer my pride. Père pardonnez-les, ils ne savent pas ce qu’ils font. Open your books, mesdemoiselles, if you please. “Je ferme la porte—I shut the door. Tu fermes la porte—thou shuttest the door.” ’ She pronounced the words firmly, correctly, her prim, rather childish mouth pursing over her words, her soft, fair hair drawn severely from her face. Heiress to two hundred francs, Mademoiselle Busson du Maurier, whose only legacy from the past was a dusty glass tumbler blown by her own grandfather in the factory that no longer existed, had started her career as governess in a Maison d’Éducation.

  She was successful; not because she was particularly well versed in English grammar or especially qualified in the mysteries of verbs and gerunds, but because she possessed the happy faculty of making herself beloved by her pupils. She had a gift of understanding, a knack of sympathy, that made an instant appeal to those who learnt from her, and, even if she was a little too religious, a little too severe, why, they forgave her for it, because of her sweet expression, her fair hair, her mild blue eyes.

  If you were in trouble, then Mademoiselle Busson must be told of it. Had you a pain, a distress, a shadow on your conscience—why, dearest Mademoiselle Louise would take your hand in hers, murmur a prayer upon your head, shed perhaps a tear or two, and lo! you were absolved, even as the angels.

  Little Eugénie St Just made a pact of eternal friendship with her and a genuine interest and affection grew up between them; they shared one another’s books, exchanged ideas, discussed the problematical future, their hopes and their ideals. It was so great a pleasure to inspire affection in somebody, and life at home was rather shaky, rather strained, with no money and the two younger members of the family to keep, and Louis-Mathurin behaving like a mountebank.

  ‘It’s not so much his singing that we mind,’ explained the sister to her new friend. ‘He should give thanks to God for such a voice; it is a gift from heaven; but to mix with the company he does—people from the opera, actors and actresses. My mother is nearly in despair. Robert has written to him from London, and Jacques from Hamburg—all to no purpose. And, Eugénie, there is something even worse to tell you, something that even my mother does not know.’

  The little pupil opened her large dark eyes. ‘Oh, mademoiselle!’

  ‘If I tell you, you must promise never to breathe a word to anyone. Eugénie—my brother has become an atheist!’

  They stared at one another in horror, the younger girl bereft of speech, and slowly the English teacher nodded her head again.

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘it is true. Louis-Mathurin does not believe in God.’

  She gazed from the window to the white-clouded sky and wondered how it were possible that her brother, who had learnt his prayers at her knee, made his première communion at her side, could have so lost himself as to deny the faith that cradled him. She shuddered as she thought of the inferno that awaited those miserable wretches who forsook their faith….

  A knock at the door disturbed the two girls, and the English teacher put aside her embroidery. ‘What is it?’ she called.

  ‘Mademoiselle Busson is required in the salon.’

  Louise smoothed her ringlets and pattered downstairs in the train of the servant.

  Madame la Directrice met her at the door of the salon. ‘We have the prospect of a new pupil,’ she said swiftly, ‘a young English lady of about your own age. She wishes to take a course in French literature for two or three months. I have told her you were free for private lessons on Tuesday afternoons. She speaks the language fluently enough, but the mother, who is here as well, insists on interrupting. Her accent is atrocious….’

  As Louise went into the room she was assailed at once with the pungent odour of strong scent, and she heard a voice saying in loud, definite tones:

  ‘Tea? No, thank’y, I never touch the stuff. A glass of porter if you have it.’

  A murmur of apology from the Directrice, and the offer of a mild apéritif. Louise prepared herself for the worst.

  The owner of the voice was seated on the one comfortable chair in Madame Pousard’s salon and was leaning back as though the place belonged to her. She was petite, middle-aged, and incredibly over-dressed. An enormous poke bonnet, suitable for a girl of seventeen, crowned her curled, dyed hair, and a white satin dress showed beneath her fur cape.

  She wore evening shoes with scarlet heels, and she sat crossed-legged, like a man, swinging her small foot in the air. Her face was heavily painted and powdered, which, instead of concealing the crows’-feet as it was meant to do, only served to accentuate the lines. A pair of fine, rather ribald brown eyes looked out from beneath false lashes. She had rings on every finger, and wore them over her gloves; and she toyed with a monstrous little hairless dog, scented and beribboned like herself, that shivered upon her lap.

  ‘May I present our English teacher to you, Mrs Clarke?’ said the Directrice.

  And as Louise advanced nervously to the proffered hand, the English stranger had the ill-breeding to hiccup, spilling her apéritif, and then—horror upon horror—winked at her, her tongue in her cheek.

  ‘Wind under the heart,’ she murmured. ‘Can’t avoid it when you get to my age. My doctors tell me I must not drink with my food. Drink with my fiddlesticks, I say! How d’ do, then, Mamzelle Buss? Know what it means in English?’ She broke into a trilling laugh, and, winking again, she poked Louise in the ribs.

  ‘Mother,’ came a low, warning voice at her side.

  ‘Damme, Ellen, what have I said now?’ The creature turned round in her chair, flushed and aggrieved, her large bonnet already a trifle crooked.

  ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle, J’espère que vous vous trouvez en bonne santé.’

  The daughter—for this was she, supposed the bewildered Louise—spoke rapidly in rather stilted French, ignoring her mother, who shrugged her shoulders and fell to feeding her dog with lollipops from a box. The daughter was a complete contrast to her mother—very plainly dressed in quiet tones, her sallow complexion unrelieved by colour, and, instead of greeting Louise with a broad smile, as her mother had done, she looked her up and down critically, taking her in from top to toe, reserving her judgment for later.

  ‘We have been in Italy for several years,’ she said, ‘and in the south of France. Now that we are to settle in Paris for a while, I intend to see all I can, and study as much as possible. Perhaps we could read literature together, mademoiselle—the plays of Corneille and Racine—Molière I know already—and some of the earlier poets—Ronsard, Villon, for choice—so that I can compare them with the early Italians. Would it be possible for you to show me something of the picture galleries? When we were in Rome and Pisa I studied the primitives. I am rather ignorant of French art, and wish to correct this failing. Do you paint yourself, by any chance?’