To Dance With Kings, page 70
“It’s exquisite, Grand-mère.” Rose had seated herself on the stool before the mirror in Jasmin’s bedchamber and was gazing at the brooch’s reflection where she had fastened it to the neckline of her gown. It was odd that the royal donor had been her father whom she remembered clearly from her childhood visit to Versailles. Then suddenly she was touched again by the more distant past as she had been downstairs earlier. In spite of herself a sob choked in her throat and she covered her eyes with one hand.
“Dear child! What’s the matter?” Jasmin, standing beside her, became agitated with alarm.
The reply came bursting forth. “I wish Richard didn’t have Roussier blood in his veins.”
“Why ever not? I can’t tell you what it means to me. When you two are married it will bring Augustin and Marguerite together at last.”
“No!” Rose threw up her head. “Don’t say that! They may have loved each other but they were ill-fated from the start. Suppose their misfortune should descend on Richard and me to prevent our marriage from taking place? I’m terrified, Grand-mère! When he stood there by that shadowed portrait and I heard how he was a descendant of Augustin Roussier, it was as if the ground fell away from under me. Nothing is safe and secure. I could see our love in jeopardy.”
Jasmin almost recoiled before such convictions. What horrifying vision of the future had passed briefly before the girl’s eyes? Then she collected herself and answered as calmly and as wisely as she could.
“I remember your tirade against the misfortunes that afflicted the women of this family when you first heard that you were to go to Versailles. Think for a moment. Out of what you saw as a disaster has come a love that would never have been born otherwise.”
“Yes, that’s true, but—”
“You spoke of the queen’s secrets a while ago. Now I shall tell you one.” Jasmin lowered herself onto the stool as Rose moved up to give her space. “Michel has come back to me. You see a tired old woman but he sees me as if I were still young. The strange thing is that after years of shutting away my innermost feelings for him, the fact that there is no longer anyone standing between us has made a great difference to me. Once I shut him out of my life because of impossible circumstances and then again when I discovered there was another woman in his life. Now there is no need to harden my heart anymore. Despite his affection and deep gratitude to Béatrice, he has never stopped loving me and we have truly found each other again.” She gestured gracefully. “Of course it is different from the past. Companionship has taken the place of passion and perhaps my love was never as strong as his, but if I had to go through my years of misery all over again to receive all I have now, I would do it willingly.” She put her palm lovingly against her granddaughter’s cheek. “I have told you this to dispel your fears. Love has always been subject to tribulation, but what happened to Marguerite and Augustin has not proved true for me and neither should it for you.”
She saw she had eased her granddaughter’s wave of foreboding even if she had not entirely banished it. Rose was intrigued by this renewal of love in old age.
“Shall you marry him?” she asked.
“Oh, no.” Jasmin spoke decisively. “He is head of his house and I of mine. We are content to see each other as often as possible.”
When they were downstairs again Rose, still wearing the brooch, drew her relationship with Michel into the open for the first time. “Farewell, Grand-père,” she said as she was leaving, kissing him affectionately on both cheeks.
He was gratified by this new development. “Bring your betrothed to dine with me soon, Petite-fille.”
“I will.”
Later that evening he gave Jasmin a thoughtful glance across the backgammon board in the midst of their play. “What did you say to Rose when you were both upstairs?”
“I told her the truth.”
He gave her a steady look. “Good.”
She smiled to herself, shaking the dice onto the board. There were many ways of expressing love. The young thought there was only one.
ROSE AND RICHARD were married in the Royal Chapel on New Year’s Day as they had planned. The king and queen attended as well as several other members of the royal family and more than two hundred courtiers and their ladies. Richard’s mother had come from England escorted by her second son, while her twin sons had arrived in Versailles at the final stage of their Grand Tour, and a number of English friends had also made the journey.
Rose wore a gown of silver-striped white silk sewn with diamonds and pearls. Her curls, dressed out into the abundant width that was so fashionable, held silk rosebuds in their depths, and her necklace of sparkling diamonds was Richard’s wedding gift to her. He was superbly tailored in the English fashion, his coat of silver brocade cut in the new style, double-breasted with a high upstanding collar and slim tails. They had eyes only for each other.
Two women present were remembering their own marriages before the high altar gleaming gold against the embellished white marble. Marie Antoinette recalled the hope and happiness that had buoyed her up that day, compensating for her gown not fitting well, beautiful though it was. By then she had already won the adoration of the Court and the people with her youth and charm and eagerness to embrace all things French. It had all vanished like a dream.
Jasmin, at Michel’s side, had different thoughts. She had been in such a state of shock and horror that she could recall nothing of the ceremony itself. All that was vivid in her mind was the glowering hatred in Sabatin’s face and then, as they went down the aisle, the anguished expression of the young king in the gallery, he who had so swiftly forgotten her. It had always been her intention to give Marguerite’s sapphire pendant to Rose on her wedding eve, but since the girl had expressed a superstitious fear that history might repeat itself, she had decided instead to bequeath it to her with all the rest of the jewelery that she would eventually inherit. By that time Rose should have discovered that her fears were groundless.
The wedding feast was laid out in the Hercules Salon. Musicians played, vin de Champagne flowed, and toasts were drunk and finally there was a ball in the Hall of Mirrors. Soon after the dancing began, Jasmin and Michel decided to withdraw from the festivities. She was feeling extraordinarily tired and on the morrow she was entertaining Richard’s mother and brothers who were being accommodated at the British Embassy in Paris.
“It’s been a wonderful day,” Jasmin said to the bride and groom.
“We’ll come and see you soon,” Rose promised.
“Your grandmother will not be lonely,” Michel assured her. “I shall see to that now just as I will when eventually you go to live in England.”
“That won’t be for ages yet.” Rose spoke firmly. “In any case, when I am there I’ll be able to come back to Château Satory whenever I wish. When a letter can reach Paris from London in less than twenty-four hours it should not take much longer for me to get home.”
“Would you ride a post-carrier’s fast horse, then?” Jasmin teased with a flick of her fan.
Rose answered her seriously. “If I had to, Grand-mère. If you needed me.”
“I’d come with Rose,” Richard declared.
“I’m sure you would,” Jasmin replied lightly, kissing them in turn. “Now Michel and I must go. We have had enough excitement for one day.”
It was a long way through the State Apartment to the staircase. Jasmin wished it could have been possible for Michel and her to have sedan chairs to carry them, but the old rule was still maintained that only royalty might use that form of transport in this part of the Château. Normally it would have been more difficult for Michel than for her to traverse the polished floors, but this evening she was the one who dragged, scarcely able to put one foot in front of the other. It was an enormous relief when they sat back in the carriage that was to take them to their respective homes.
Richard and his bride returned to the dancing. The tall mirrors reflected them in turn as they skimmed past under the glittering chandeliers in gavottes and minuets and lively country dances, partnering each other whenever it was possible, exchanging silent messages of love in their glances whenever they were apart.
At midnight Rose was hurried away by her ladies to the new and larger apartment that had been allotted to her. She barely glimpsed her maid as she was hustled into the bedchamber. There was no unhooking or untying of her garments by the faithful Diane on this night. Jeweled fingers were plucking her clothes from her, young, laughing female faces surrounded her, and waves of varied scents wafted into her nostrils. It was almost overpowering.
On the outskirts of the ring of ladies around her mistress, Diane received the discarded wedding gown and took it into a closet where she draped it carefully over a wicker frame. Then she returned to gather up the scattered petticoats strewn about the floor together with the wisp of a chemise, the diamond-buckled satin shoes, and the white silk stockings.
Marie Antoinette came to the bedchamber to be the one to see the bride into bed since the girl had no mother to be there and the grandmother was too old to supervise at such a late hour. She knew also that her presence would stem any excessive horseplay and this was apparent when Richard arrived with an escort of his brothers, the wilder element having stayed outside the door. His silk robe was taken from him and he climbed into the huge canopied bed beside Rose. As they sat side by side receiving everyone’s good wishes, he found her hand under the bedclothes and squeezed it. The queen kissed the bride and the gold and orange bed-curtains were drawn, leaving them in amber-tinted shadow.
They did not move until they heard the door close and the room fell into silence. Then exuberantly they flung their arms about each other and collapsed back into the pillows, rejoicing as they rolled together in a tight embrace.
“It’s over! They’ve gone!” he exclaimed elatedly, looking down into her happy face. Then he saw her expression follow his into one of tenderness and love as he spoke softly to her. “Now it’s only you and I. Forever.”
“I love you,” she whispered in English, something she had planned to please him from the lessons she was taking in his language.
“As I love you, my darling wife,” he murmured back to her, the last word lost as he took her parted lips in an ardent kiss. When it ended he sat up again to haul his nightshirt over his head and toss it away through the curtains, which swung under the impact and parted to let the candlelight in the room run flickeringly over them. It gave a momentary aura to his muscled body as if for a few seconds he had become Apollo around whom the whole of Versailles revolved. Pagan, beautiful, and full of fiery desire.
Yet at first he was almost unbearably gentle, every delicate touch sending her into paroxysms of delicious tremblings. He threw back the bedclothes to take her nightgown by its hem and draw it slowly up, unveiling her body to him, his kisses keeping pace with its progress until at last he took it over her head and her upstretched arms to throw it from the bed. He caught her wrists in one hand before she could lower her arms and pressed her back into the pillows, a willing captive, while he caressed and kissed her breasts, cupping and stroking with such play of lips and tongue that she felt she was drowning in sensual delight. Her spine arched and with a gasp she broke her wrists from his light hold to run her hand lovingly over his shoulder, neck, and up into his hair.
The curtain had not quite fallen back after being disarrayed a second time by the flight of her nightgown. He, seeing that all the modesty she had clung to in the past months had flown at last, kicked the drapery back still farther with one foot and their pale entwined bodies became pale gold in the candlelight and the glow from the fireplace.
“I wanted it to be like this from the minute I saw you,” he breathed, moving his mouth to hers again. “If I had been able I would have pulled you from the calèche there and then into my arms.”
“I saw that in your eyes,” she whispered back before his kisses swallowed her up once more.
Then his lips left hers to travel down her body again, his hands splayed over her hips while his lovemaking took on a new dimension, rousing such passion in her that she threshed like some lovely fish. He could no longer hold back from taking her and propelled himself forward to slide powerfully into the dark, moist virginal depths of her. He felt her start on a moment’s pain, her eyes flying open, and then all was rhythmic harmony. He carried her with him up and up to sun-god heights and they climaxed together, their gasps mingling and their hearts beating in the tumult of love.
The night hours passed in a pattern of passion and dozing and making love again. They breakfasted in bed, feeding each other in the way of lovers, dazed by this new existence into which nobody could intrude and where nobody could separate them. They left Versailles shortly before noon to drive to a château once owned by Madame de Pompadour, which the queen had offered them for a sojourn together. Almost nothing had been changed since the royal favorite’s day, everything in exquisite and timeless taste. Fires blazed in every fireplace for the weather was bitter, one of the cruelest winters for many years. On the way they had thrown money to starving people in rags who had come running to beg at the sight of their gleaming carriage as it went spanking by on the frosty road.
They made love in front of the fires, locking the doors of whichever elegant room they happened to be in amid walls of pink or blue or green and under ceilings of white and gold. On sharp, clear mornings they rode in the forest and when it snowed an old sleigh was brought out of storage for them to go for drives with little bells tinkling. At night their ornately draped bed became a haven again for expressions of love. The outside world with all its problems had ceased to exist and for once in their lives they gave no thought to it.
“To think I was once afraid that something would prevent our marrying,” she said blissfully one morning. They had returned from a sleigh ride and were going up the steps into the château, his arm about her waist, their breath hanging in the icy air.
“What put that idea into your head?”
She stopped and turned to him. “When I learned you were of Roussier descent I suddenly saw us being Augustin and Marguerite all over again.”
“That was impossible. Their circumstances were entirely different.”
“I know.” She gave her head a little shake at her own foolishness, thrusting away the memory of the shaft of foreboding that had pierced her at the time. “Tell me, do you at least think our meeting was predestined because of them?”
Such fanciful notions were alien to his practical mind, but he could see by the way she was looking at him that his answer was important to her. “Only through my being brought up to appreciate my Huguenot heritage, making me determined to see France and visit Versailles.” He tweaked her chin gently between his finger and thumb, giving her a smile. “My mother actually wished a French bride on me, not knowing that you were still haunting me. If all these things add up, then I should say that destiny was at work.”
“Yes, I see that.”
“Only for our good, I hasten to add.”
“I agree with you,” she said contentedly. “It has brought us so much.” He hugged her about the waist as they continued up into the house.
Unbeknownst to them, cut off as they were for a little while from any outside contacts, spates of violence had broken out everywhere. Desperate people were breaking into granaries and plundering bakeries and corn convoys. Anyone suspected of hoarding grain to fetch still higher prices went in danger of his life, even a bishop being stoned for refusing to release corn to the needy. Country nobles were being defied, the peasants refusing to pay tithes and dues and defending themselves with cudgels and pikes when attempts were made to turn them off their land. The stench of anarchy was rising and many nervous bourgeois began to form citizens’ militias to protect themselves.
All this news and much more burst upon the newly married couple when they returned to Versailles, but the most alarming information of all to Rose was that her grandmother had been indisposed and thus unable to entertain Richard’s mother and family who had now gone back to England. While he drove to Paris to see what work awaited him at the Embassy, Rose went straight to Château Satory. She found Jasmin up and neatly gowned, her white hair widely dressed under a lace cap, writing letters in the library.
“What happened? Were you taken ill?” Rose exclaimed anxiously when greetings were over.
Jasmin put down her pen and removed her spectacles. “No, the doctor could find nothing wrong with me. The morning after the wedding I just found it impossible to rise from my bed. It was as if all my energy had deserted me.”
“You did too much beforehand, helping me with the lists and gathering all those beautiful gifts you gave me.”
“Perhaps, but I was so pleased to do whatever I could. My chief regret was that the dinner for your English relations had to be canceled. Fortunately Richard’s mother came to see me before they traveled home again. She is a charming woman and we had a long talk. Naturally she was eager to hear all I could tell her about Augustin Roussier. I let her roam the château at will to see what had once been his residence.”
“How did she accept Marguerite having been his mistress while he was married to her great-grandmother?”
“In the same broad-minded and kindly way she received what you and Richard told her about your parentage.” Jasmin gave a worldly-wise smile. “With all that French blood in her veins she is philosophical about such matters. She also told me some of their family history during the intervening years. I gathered that Augustin’s greatest joy in his old age was Edmund’s little daughter for whom he had his own pet name—Lily.”
