Chapter 11
On my birthday I followed my usual routine until it was time for morning tea. I hesitated whether I had to visit her, as was my custom. The previous days she had not mentioned my birthday coming up and though I didn't care much for the occasion, I was anxious for her not to have forgotten about it. After scolding myself for being childish I made it for her suite. Hearing her and Leclerc softly talking in the kitchen, I peeked around the corner. It seemed to me that my butler shared his hair colouring cream with our Queen, just as I'd expected him to do. Clarisse carefully placed a tiny candle on a fancy cake, her face lit with merry anticipation. I silently and shamefully retreated and I acted very surprised when Clarisse entered my suite carrying a tray with a tea pot, cups and cakes and a scroll of paper.
She smiled at me warmly, put down the tray, congratulated me and kissed my cheek.
´I wish I could have bought you a present,´ she said, ´I've been thinking what I could give you and... You've been asking about my childhood. I wrote this down for you. I hope you like it.´
She handed me the scroll. Moved by her nervousness I removed a braided ribbon that held the scroll together. Her elegant handwriting filled several pages.
´Please don't read it now,´ she said.
I kissed her hand and thanked her for her present.
´You ought to blow out the candle and make a wish!´
I did the former and I looked as if I'd done the latter. It's not that I didn't harbour a wish, but wishing for things has never made them come true. My actions so far would not result in her taking me to her bedroom for my birthday. The gift she had made me was so very Clarisse.
We sat down and while she poured us tea, I carefully unrolled the scroll a little.
Andre,
You've often asked me about my childhood and I've haven't told you a lot about it. I wrote down a little history that is not generally known and I wonder whether Rupert ever shared it with you.
When the tea-pot was placed on the table I let the paper sheets re-roll themselves. I didn't have to put an effort in looking caught. She blushed before repeating that she hoped I would like my present.
While we enjoyed Leclerc's eggless cakes I received a call and Clarisse urged me to answer it. I went to my office to do so and I paid attention to my sister congratulating me while at the same time I watched Clarisse. She'd stopped stirring her tea and I got the impression that she was holding her breath as to not to reveal her presence. After I'd ended the call Clarisse put on a smile.
´How is Valerie doing?´
My sister's name is usually shortened to Val and I was reminded of Clarisse calling Joe Joseph. It had been over four months since he'd died. I replied to Clarisse's question and then asked her why she hadn't brought her exercise-book.
´I thought that you might want to skip classes on your birthday. And your relatives will want to talk to you.´
With perfect timing the phone rang: it was my nephew Vincent. Just after I'd seated myself again a fax came through. Clarisse laughed and I admitted that we'd indeed better continue to study tomorrow. Knowing what her answer would be I asked her whether she wanted to have more days off. She shook her head: ´I enjoy studying with you.´
Just as I'd hoped, she had blossomed since we'd taken up Latin. Our relationship was still much the same with the difference that like a fifteen year old making homework with the loveliest girl from school, I touched her as often as possible. I only had one copy of the Latin book, so she and I had to sit next to each other and when reaching out to turn a page or get a pencil my fingers would brush her hand. She didn't comment my schoolboy's approach and she seemed to have no problem with my behaviour. However, if I made her a compliment on her appearance, she changed the subject. Whenever I eyed her warmly, she looked away. She wasn't playing hard to get, she was playing we're friends. It was frustrating. I spent a lot of time in the gym, but it didn't help much.
´So my idea to brush up our Latin was a good one?´ I replied to her remark.
´If I wouldn't have had you and our lovely lessons,´ Clarisse said, staring at her hands,´I'm afraid I would have drowned -´
My heart skipped a beat.
´- in my grief.´
She gave me a feeble smile.
´And at the same time I dislike myself for enjoying to study...´ her voice trailed of.
From my library she had got books about various subjects of her interest to study them in the afternoon.
´My darling, you do not think that after we suffered a loss, we are not allowed to enjoy ourselves any more?´
The damn phone rang again. I softly continued talking, lowering my voice.
´What is the point of living when we can't celebrate life? Your granddaughter cheered you up after Philippe's death and I think that if there's a heaven, your son would have glanced down at you and said finally.´
She gave it a thought and nodded. I answered the phone while watching Clarisse. She was staring ahead, deep in thought. The index finger of her right hand caressed her collar-bone. I turned my back to the enticing picture she offered. After I'd broken the connection, rather than sitting next to her again, I walked over to my dinner table that held a partly finished jigsaw of an Austrian mansion.
´Would you mind if I continued my puzzle my dear?´
´Of course not. Would you like some more tea?´
´No thank you.´
She poured herself another cup. After a while she cleared her throat and asked me if something was wrong. Without looking up I said that all was fine.
´Are you all right Andre?´
´Nothing fits,´ I replied, tapping a puzzle piece on the table.
´Are you worrying about something? Your nephews didn't get themselves into trouble did they?´
´No, those days are past.´
She walked toward me. ´You're not on Genovia's wanted list, are you?´
Her expression was tense and concerned. Her body had curves in all the right places.
I shook my head and focused on the mansion's roof.
´Andre, have I done something to upset you?´
Because of her dependency on my hospitality asking that question was a brave thing to do. It took me a moment to reply. How many rescuers would admit that they were not upset with her but sick with longing for her? How many men would already have made it clear that there was a special way to say ´thank you for saving my life´?
´Please don't ever think so my dear.´
´It's just that you're spending more time alone and I thought -´
´I've been training a lot lately.´
She picked up a puzzle piece and without hesitation placed it in the right spot.
´Ha!´ I cried out, ´Now that is something to get upset about!´
It made her laugh with relief.
´Will I see you for lunch?´
´Of course my dear.´
By way of a goodbye she cupped my cheek.
After she'd left I settled myself in my favourite chair to read the story she'd written down for me. The phone rang but I ignored it. Starting with the introduction again, I had no difficulty imagining Clarisse's beautiful voice speaking the lines.
Andre,
You've often asked me about my childhood and I've haven't told you a lot about it. I wrote down a little history that is not generally known and I wonder whether Rupert ever shared it with you.
Not that he was familiar with the particulars from my side, but perhaps he told you that when we got officially engaged I'd been his betrothed for ten years already.
By way of a poor present, let me tell you about that.
I anxiously picked up the second page.
The books I owned as a child all made it to my sons' rooms. We spent many a pleasant hour reading them. Pierre preferred to listen to tales of dragons, while Philippe's favourites were stories of cunning heroes. From one book I never read them. It was the book given to me in April of the year when I was seven.
From the moment I could read, digesting books is what I loved doing best. With my brother at boarding school and having private teachers myself, I suppose I was a lonely child, but I didn't mind. I liked the company of adults and when one day my father told me that he and I were to visit 'uncle' Etienne and that His Majesty would be there as well, I was perfectly fine with that once I'd learned that there wouldn't be any other children.
On occasion of the visit I was made a new dress and when I first fitted it my father came to check my appearance. He was sorry to see that I still had big feet, and he made a remark about the dress being long enough to cover my scratched knees, but he approved the overall picture I presented and he told me that I looked like a lady. I beamed at our seamstress, Lucia, who kindly nodded at me.
´Can you imagine baroness Nicole to climb a tree Clarisse?´ father asked me.
The baroness was in her eighties and she couldn't walk without a cane. I was about to reply when my father answered his own question: ´She is a lady. Ladies don't climb trees. You are a lady so...?´
´I like climbing trees sir,´ I said, looking at the hem of my dress.
´I've noticed that Clarisse. But you are a lady and...?´
´The sound of the wind going through the leaves is so beautiful father,´ I tried.
The seamstress urged me to stand still.
´You need not climb a tree to hear that girl,´ father said, ´I will ask you once again: You're a lady so ...?´
´I won't climb trees sir.´
´Good. You are a noblewoman and your behaviour should be exemplary. I expect you to be a perfect lady when you meet His Majesty. No whistling, no running about and no cheekiness. Understood?´
I promised him that I would behave and I did. I sat straight, I was polite and I smiled. The ladies at uncle Etienne's tea-party told each other that I was quite the little lady. When the gentlemen joined us I made a perfect curtsey for the King who started chatting with me. The King was too old to pull at my braid so I was relaxed and I cared not that his impressive whiskers made him look like a lion.
His Majesty and my father happened to be the only gentlemen who smoked and at the King's suggestion they walked into the garden so the ladies wouldn't have to inhale their cigar fumes. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but I didn't miss their interaction and it surprised me to see it: normally my father was the one to be pleased, not the one to please.
On our way back home my father -every inch the confident count again- padded my head and told me that I was a good girl. This kind of praise was normally reserved for his pointers after a successful hunt and it got even better: on our return home he gave me the book I mentioned above. I read it underneath an old majestic chestnut at the estate. The warm breeze caressing me, the scents of spring, the birds singing, having something to read and knowing that I was in father's good graces made me feel happy.
Two or three days after I'd received the book, my father sent away the butler who was attending us at lunch. I thought that perhaps I'd done something wrong, and I was surprised when my father asked me how I liked my new book. I carefully said that I'd liked some stories, not voicing my thought that there were too many tales about sleeping or waiting maidens. Father remarked that all girls must dream of a prince on a white horse. I smiled politely. Father cleared his throat and told me that he had an announcement to make.
'This morning I signed a contract that will bring prosperity and I dare say joy to our ancient family.'
He eyed me as if to encourage me to make a guess. Because of the 'joy' I hesitatingly asked him whether he was to remarry. He said that he wasn't but he neither added ´silly girl´ nor told me that if he'd found himself a new wife, he surely would have waited for Rainier to be present before making the announcement.
He smiled at me.
'I have found you a spouse.'
While he poured himself some wine I waited for him to start laughing at his joke. He mentioned having been at the royal Castle in Pyrus. ´It is a beautiful Castle. Look at me Clarisse.'
His expression was not that of a man who is about to say: ´I fooled you didn't I?´ It would have been a sick joke if he had, but I wished for it to happen with all my might.
'I found you a prince Clarisse.'
I just knew what he was going to say next: 'A prince on a white horse.'
I didn't respond.
'Right now I'm having lunch with Genovia's future Queen.'
It didn't impress me the way you might think Andre. Marriage was something for adults and I was a child. As for queens: in the stories I'd read they were dull bystanders, no more. I wasn't excited about my future prospects, I was upset: my father speaking of a contract and of prosperity made me feel sold.
´Do you want to know what your mother did after I told her that she was going to marry your father?´ my father asked Pierre and Philippe one day.
My sons shook their heads. ´Did she jump up and down?´ Pierre guessed, for that was what he'd done when he'd seen the slide he'd gotten as a birthday present a month earlier on.
´She added honey to her tea,´ my father told my boys.
Philippe had had the giggles all day long and his grandfather's incredulous expression had his small body bent over with laughter.
Pierre glanced from me to my father and he thoughtfully replied: ´Mother likes honey.´
´Indeed, but such a thing to do!´ father said, eyeing me.
´It was somewhat overwhelming,´ I told him with a small smile, feeling as tense as I had when he'd revealed the joyous news.
My father had made it clear that the engagement was to be a secret. I readily promised him I wouldn't tell anyone about it, though it didn't feel right that even Rainier wasn't to be informed. As months passed by the whole 'I found you a prince' thing merely seemed like a dream. When the hunting season neared I could no longer fool myself into believing that.
One day after classes I went to my room to give my dolls and teddy bears a summary of what I'd been taught that day, as was my custom. Quite often it would make me think of things to ask my teachers, so it worked out fine for all of us. Imagine what a shock it was for me to see that my pupils had gone missing. My investigations led me to my father. First he said that my toys went on a holiday. When I replied that they would never leave without me, he said that it was a noble thing to make sacrifices and then he took me to the hunting cabin.
I normally avoided the cabin because it looked spooky. I hadn't been near it in a while and I'd never even noticed any workmen, though judging by the obvious improvements to the building, they must have been busy for some time.
Father walked me around the cabin. It smelled after paint and newly sawn wood. A tiny part of me wondered whether this cabin would from now on be a play-cabin for me and a home for my toys but that idea died away when father repeated that sacrifices needed to be made. He didn't elaborate, leaving it up to me to draw my conclusions. Since father believed that children weren't around unless they were acknowledged by adults, he and his steward sometimes discussed the state of the estate in my presence. I knew that money was an issue for us.
I reasoned that he'd sold my dolls and bears (who were valuable to me) to pay the workmen and the building-materials. I failed to understand why he hadn't used the money to have several ill functioning chimneys fixed or improve the sun-lounge or replace the floor of the ballroom.
A few days later on I was in the kitchen, babbling to Mrs Diaz, the cook. I'd started summing up the capitals of Europe plus the year they'd been founded and when that failed to interest her I expressed my hope that Sonia, Marie, Claudette, Anna, Lancelot, Henri and Alec had found nice new children to take care of them and to read them bedtime stories. Absent mindedly the cook inquired who all those people were.
´Oh,´ she said after I'd explained, ´aren't they in the attic?´
I hurried to go and see. I knew my way around the huge attic and it didn't take long before I'd located some new boxes. One of them contained my pupils. I hugged them all and reassured them that I hadn't been the one to lock them up.
I still believed father planned to sell them and it pained me, but if we were in debts for the hunting cabin I had no choice but to part from my little friends. Rushing downstairs I got the dolls warmer clothes as well as other necessities.
I hurried back and re-dressed the girls. I was brushing Henri's fur when the scent of a cigar entered my nose.
Father was not pleased. He made it clear that an engaged young lady like myself should not play with dolls. Taking Henri from me he dropped him in the box. The bear's snout hit the bottom. I was shocked but before I could respond, father ordered me to put the others back in the box.
I obeyed, but while I was making Marie a snug bed, father threw in her mates, smashed the lit on the box and dragged me with him. I started crying because I hadn't had time to make air holes in the box.
´Please don't sell them! You can have my piggy bank instead!´ I offered, feeling stupid for not having thought of it before. ´It's very heavy so it will pay for the hunting cabin.´
´Silly girl! You will not make the prince feel sorry about the contract, is that understood?´
He handed me his handkerchief.
´All I need is for you to act like a lady, understood? I want the Crown Prince to be content with you, understood? If he is, you need not worry about the cabin.´
My father couldn't boast to have a lot of large game at his estate and the members of the royal family didn't often accept count Valois's annual invitation to come hunting. That year the Crown Prince came to shoot our birds. The prospect of his arrival unnerved me just as much as an exam did. Professor Beckmann, a retired university professor who taught me history and geography, took offence of my absent mindedness and he ordered me to explain. What was I to say? If the prince doesn't like me, he'll ask the King to tore the contract and then father will need my dolls and bears to repay for the hunting cabin and I now fear that might not even be enough?
I assured the professor that I liked his lessons very much and I told him that I was a little nervous for the prince's visit. He chuckled and said that he knew the prince to be a kind and bright young man.
When you're seven years old twenty-two is hardly young and I wondered whether I could trust the professor's praise.
Father wanted me to join the huntsmen for lunch and act the hostess. One of the prince's friends thought it was funny to scare me with a story about the blood of game being smeared on girls' faces. I didn't so much as blink. Feeling both my father and the prince glancing at me, I gave a reply that caused the latter to laugh. The other gentlemen followed suit. I kept my face straight, though I was pleased as Punch: the prince seemed to like me and father had given me an approving nod.
Rupert and I had been married for some years when I asked him about his recollection of our first meeting. He remembered two things: that the sight of the dead birds hadn't made me cry and that he'd been glad I hadn't brought a doll to lunch. I concluded that he hadn't made my pupils go into exile. Isn't it strange that after all those years that still mattered to me?
As you know Rupert and I allowed our sons to choose for themselves. I hope Pierre will make sure that Amelia too can follow her heart.
Well Andre, with this I conclude the story of my secret engagement. I wish you a happy birthday.
With love,
Clarisse
I stared ahead.
Picturing Clarisse as a tree climbing girl had made me smile but if anything her story had moved me. I may not always take people's feelings into account but that doesn't mean that I have no empathy for others. And Clarisse I loved. Her childhood ought to have been a happy one.
I skipped through the papers: there wasn't a single crossing out or ink-blot. It must have taken her a lot of time to write it down and even more time to construct it. I was proud of her penmanship.
After rereading the story I focused on why she had selected this particular history. Had she delved into her unpleasant memories to give me something special? Or did my diplomatic Queen want me to know she wasn't for sale ever again? Perhaps I was getting paranoia. Perhaps I needed to approach the wooing of Clarisse differently.
Was I wrong in thinking that she hadn't liked it that I'd spent less time with her?
I would think about the possibilities of that idea later on. First I was going to read my mail after which I would have lunch with my future lover.
...
...
Author's note: In chapter 12 Andre, claiming to have business to deal with, goes ashore, leaving the Queen aboard Triple V.
