Zipporah's Daughter полностью

I hesitated. ‘What is love? Is it being excited by someone … enjoying the presence of someone … feeling alive when he is there and yet at the same time knowing too much about him … knowing that he wants power, money … and that he is prepared to do almost anything for them … not quite trusting … ? You see, I am trying to see his inadequacies. Is that love?’

‘Perhaps you are looking for perfection.’

‘Didn’t you look for it … and find it?’

‘I never looked for it because I did not believe it existed. I stumbled on it by chance.’

‘It was because you loved so deeply that you found it. My mother might not have been perfect.’

‘Ah, but she was.’

‘In your eyes, as you were in hers. Were you perfect, Father?’

‘Far from it.’

‘But she thought you were. Perhaps that is love. An illusion. Seeing what is not there and perhaps the more deeply one loves the more one deceives oneself.’

‘My dearest child, I should like to see you happy before I die … even if it means not having you with me. The greatest happiness I have known came through you and your mother. Who would have believed that a chance meeting could lead to that? It was an enchanted night, that one, and she was there and I was there … ’

I leaned over and kissed him. ‘I am glad that we pleased you … my mother and I. You pleased us every bit as much, you know. I loved the man I believed to be my father. He was kind and gentle … but you … you were different. You were so romantic and gallant in your castle. It was wonderful to learn that you were my father.’

He turned away to hide his emotion. Then he said almost brusquely: ‘I don’t want you to go on living here … growing older, wasting your youth. You are not like your mother. You are more able to take care of yourself. She was innocent. She did not see evil. You are not like that, Lottie.’

‘More … earthy,’ I said.

‘I would say more worldly. You know more of men than she did. You would understand the imperfections and bear them, and perhaps even love the more because of them. I think often of Dickon. He is no saint. But do you want a saint? They can be hard to live with. I think you are fond of him in a special way, and will never forget him whatever happens. So he is with you. He is indeed a man full of faults, but brave and strong, I would say. I think he should be the father of a child for you … before it is too late.’

‘I am not going to leave the château. I like it here.’

‘In this gloomy castle with Sophie in her turret casting her own special sort of spell over the place.’

‘The children are happy here.’

‘They will grow up and have lives of their own. I want you go to England.’

‘Go to England? What do you mean? To Eversleigh?’

‘I do. I want you to take the children, to see Dickon in his home, and there to decide what you really want. I think you should go there to discover.’

‘I shall not leave you.’

‘I thought you would say that. That is why I have decided that I will go with you.’

I stared at him in astonishment.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘I have promised myself. I too am tired of the château. I want a rest from it. I want to forget what happened to Armand. I want to forget Sophie brooding in her tower. I want a bit of excitement. What do you say that you and I, with the children, cross the water to England?’

I just looked at him in amazement.

He said: ‘You have answered. I can see the joy in your face. That is good. I am going to tell the children at once. There is no reason why we should delay.’

Charlot was wildly excited about the proposed visit to England. So was Claudine. Louis-Charles was so disconsolate that I said we must take him with us, and Lisette agreed that he might go. I was happy listening to them, making plans, talking of England which they had never seen, counting the days.

My father talked to them of what he knew of Eversleigh. Claudine would sit at his feet on a footstool, her arms clasped about her knees as she dreamily stared into space. Charlot plied him with questions; and Louis-Charles listened in the respectful silence he always showed in the presence of the Comte.

It was four days before we were due to leave when my father asked me to walk with him down to the moat. He took my arm and said slowly: ‘Lottie, I cannot make this journey.’

I stopped and stared at him in horror.

‘I have been letting myself pretend I would, shutting my eyes to truth. See how breathless I am climbing this slope? I am not young any more. And if I were ill on the journey … or in England … ’

‘I should be there to take care of you.’

He shook his head. ‘No, Lottie. I know. I have a pain here … round my heart. It is because of this that I want to see you settled.’

I was silent for a moment. Then I said: ‘Have you seen the doctors?’

He nodded. ‘I am no longer young, they tell me. I must accept my fate.’

‘I think a messenger should go to Eversleigh at once. They will be making preparations for us. And I will tell the children now that we are not going.’

‘No! I said I could not go. You and the children must.’

‘Without you?’