That night I was awakened by some dream to find myself in a state of terror. I could not understand what was happening. Then I was suddenly aware that I was not alone.
For those first waking seconds I was transported back in time to the days before my wedding to Charles when I had been awakened in just such a way to see Sophie at the foot of my bed in my wedding veil.
I cried: ‘Who is that?’
Then she came out of the shadows. She stood by my bed. She had taken off her hood and her face looked grotesque in the moonlight.
‘Sophie!’ I whispered.
‘Why do you hate me?’ she asked.
‘Hate you! But Sophie … ’
‘If you don’t, why do you try to hurt me? Haven’t I been hurt enough to please you?’
‘What do you mean, Sophie?’ I replied. ‘I would do anything I could for you. If it were in my power … ’
She laughed. ‘Who are you? The bastard. You have come here and won my father from us all.’
I wanted to protest. I wanted to cry: He was never yours so how could I take him from you?
She stood there at the end of my bed as she had done on that other night. She said: ‘You took Charles from me.’
‘No! You gave him up. You wouldn’t marry him.’
She touched her face. ‘You were there when this happened. You went off with him and left me.’
‘Oh, Sophie,’ I protested. ‘It was not like that.’
‘It is long ago,’ she said. ‘And then you told my father, did you not, that Léon wanted to marry me … and you persuaded him that it would not be right because he was only a tutor and I was a Comte’s daughter. I heard you talking to him about me at the moat.’
‘It is not true. I said no such thing. I said it would be good for you and for him. I assure you, Sophie, that is what I said.’
‘And he was sent away. There was this story about his mother … and now he is to stay with her and he won’t come back here. That is your doing.’
‘Oh Sophie, you are quite wrong.’
‘Do you think I don’t know? You tried to pretend first that he was a spy … you and your friend … that man … that Dickon. You are going to marry him, are you not? … when my father is dead and everything comes to you. What of Armand? How did you and your lover get him out of the way?’
‘Sophie, this is madness.’
‘Madness now, you say. Is that what you want them to say of me? I hate you. I shall never forget what you have done to me. I will never forgive you.’
I got out of bed and approached her, but she put out her arms to ward me off. She walked backwards to the door her arms stretched out before her as she went. She looked like a sleepwalker.
I cried: ‘Sophie … Sophie … listen to me. You are wrong … wrong about everything. Let me talk to you.’
But she shook her head. I watched the door shut on her. Then I went back to bed and lay there, shivering.
GLOOM HAD DESCENDED ON the castle. I could not forget Sophie’s nocturnal visit and I wondered how I could ever get her to accept the truth. I had not realized how much she had resented me. It was only since the coming of Charles, of course; before that she had accepted me as her sister.
Perhaps I had been too taken up with my own affairs to give enough attention to hers. Poor girl, so fearfully scarred, and then to lose the man she was to marry and again to have lost the chance of happiness. I must try to understand.
Marie Louise announced her intention of going into a convent. She had long thought of doing so and now that it was almost certain that her husband was dead, there was nothing to keep her in the château. My father was delighted to see her go. He said he thought it would lessen the gloom a little.
He was very anxious about me.
‘You are pining for Dickon,’ he said.
‘No, no!’ I protested. ‘Nothing of the sort. When he comes he creates … disturbances.’
‘But it is disturbance that makes life worth living for you and without it … is it not a little dull?’
‘I have the children and you.’
‘The children are growing up. Claudine is nearly thirteen years old.’
‘So she is.’ When I was that age I had been overwhelmed by Dickon for some time and had thought of marriage to him. Charlot was almost sixteen and Louis-Charles was a little older than that. It was indeed true that they were growing away from childhood.
‘And you are getting older, my dear,’ went on my father.
‘We all are, of course.’
‘It must be thirty-four years ago when I saw your mother for the first time. It was so romantic … dusk … and she stood there like a phantom from another world. She thought I was a ghost too. I had been hunting for a fob I had lost and I rose up suddenly on that haunted patch of land and really startled her.’
‘I know. You have told me.’
‘I should like to see it all again before I die. Lottie, you should go back. You should go to Eversleigh. You should make up your mind what to do about Dickon. I think you are in love with him. Are you?’
