She herself refused to take meals with us, which was what I had wanted although I had guessed there might be protests from Charles about this. I knew that he did not greatly like the idea of Lisette’s being treated as a member of the family, which was what I really wanted; I knew, too, that Lisette was very conscious of her position as she always had been at Aubigné and that it had rankled with her that she was not on the same footing as Sophie and I had been. I wanted to treat her as one of us but she would not have it.
She and Louis-Charles had their meals in a small room adjoining her apartment and she would go to the kitchens and take it up with her so that none of the servants waited on her.
I said this was a lot of nonsense at first, but I did realize that even in an easy-going household like that of the Tourvilles there would have been resentments and attitudes perhaps among some of the higher servants.
Lisette was tactful; she was reserved with members of the family and it was only when she and I were alone together that she became her old vivacious self.
It was an ideal arrangement for Louis-Charles, who had no inhibitions such as those which plagued his mother, and he shared Charlot’s nursery, being an excellent companion for him, and the two boys played and fought happily together.
There was no objection from my parents-in-law. Charles’s father spent most of his time in his apartments and his mother was with him a good deal; she had always been very affable to me and although they seemed rather colourless, I was grateful to be left to my own devices and to be given a free hand in the household. Amélie was immediately attracted to Lisette, who did her hair for her in such a manner as delighted her, and they spent a great deal of time discussing the trousseau together. With Amélie’s coming wedding the main concern of the household, Lisette’s arrival passed off without too much attention being called to it and Lisette settled in comfortably and easily. I told her she looked like a pretty kitten when she lay in her bed stretching herself in a rather feline way, which was a habit of hers.
‘Purring away now that I have a comfortable home and am sure of my dish of cream every day,’ she said, laughing at me.
She changed my life completely. The tedious days of pregnancy had become full of laughter. We talked of the past most of the time and the only occasions when I was sad were when I remembered Sophie.
There was a great deal of talk at that time about the American colonists who were in conflict with the English government over taxes which were, some said, being unfairly imposed. Charles said it was clear that there would soon be war between England and her colonists if the English did not come to their senses.
He took a delight in denigrating the English, which I knew was partly in fun, but I refused to take part in these discussions. In any case my thoughts were with my child who would soon be making an appearance.
The winter was passing and we were in February when my confinement began.
Lisette was constantly with me. She had no particular flair for nursing but her high spirits did me more good than anything.
And in due course my child was born. I was delighted this time to have a girl and Charles was overjoyed. We discussed her name and finally decided that she should be called Claudine.
I WAS SO ABSORBED with my baby that I did not take much interest in what was happening in the outside world. My great pleasure was in the nursery, where the new baby was received with awe by Chariot and Louis-Charles. Claudine was a noisy baby with a good pair of lungs and from the first seemed to know what she wanted.
‘She’s different from Monsieur Charlot,’ said the nurse. ‘A will of her own, that one.’
She had been born rather an ugly baby but grew more beautiful every day. She had dark fluffy hair and quite a lot of it for one so young and eyes that were of a vivid blue.
We all adored her and when she cried it was a charming sight to see Charlot at the side of her cradle murmuring: ‘Hush! Hush! Charlot is here.’
I was very happy with my children.
Charles talked of little else but the trouble between England the colonists. At first I thought he was so strongly on the side of the colonists to tease me by jeering at the English. He often reminded me, rather ruefully, that I was more English than French; and this was true, for although no one could be more French than my father and even Jean-Louis, who I had believed for so long had sired me, by a strange coincidence had been half French, having been brought up in England by my English mother, I was decidedly of that nature—in my outlook, my manners—in fact in everything. Even though I now spoke fluent French and often thought in that language, Charles liked to remind me of what he called my Englishness and whenever there was a disagreement between us, he would say: ‘There is the Englishwoman.’
