Page 86 of Ravishing Camille
“Oui, Monsieur. Later in the town.”
“And you asked him where she’d gone?”
“Oui, Monsieur. He knows.”
“He can tell me the address?”
Barrère acknowledged that with a grunt. “I can take you to him, if you like.”
“I like. Very much. Might we go now, Barrère?”
Chapter 21
Camille had always prided herself on making good choices.
Looking around the salon of the chateau she’d been given by Monsieur Daumier, she questioned if coming here was one of them. The fourteen-room house sat on a moat connected to its gardens by a land bridge. To marvel at the house from the side surrounded by water, she could see that it appeared to float in the mist of the mornings and evenings. She took long walks the past two days and admiring the house gave her a distance from much that occupied her.
The chateau itself also fascinated her. So too the stories of the estate agent, Monsieur Cartot. He spoke excellent English and she was certain Daumier had told him to be on his toes to speak the new tenent’s language with her. The frail little man had been kind to welcome her, indeed to let her in when she arrived unexpected, trunk in tow and valise in hand, frustration knitting her brow.
Cartot’s stories had consumed her. And she absorbed them because they were vital to feeding her imagination—and essential to keep her mind from her worries.
The chateau was a treasure. Built, Cartot told her, by a cousin of Louis the Thirteenth, the ducal abode was constructed of sturdy, creamy Loire limestone. Camille could examine the high vaulted ceilings for hours and with each new look find another animal amid the acanthus leaves, his demeanor always feral. The five boudoir apartments on the third story were expansive rooms of such gold paneling that when the sun shone upon the veneer, her eyes hurt. The marble sculptures of Venus and Eros, Alphios and Arethusa standing in the halls stole her breath with their artistry. But their poses and expressions were angry, inspiring a distaste in her. The paintings on the walls were no better. They could take her to Renaissance Florence or hunting with Louis the Fourteenth, but they showed mobs or bloody hunting scenes. The tapestries, some threadbare, others vibrant as the day they were woven, lined many walls, ten or fifteen or twenty feet tall and twice as long. They were of battles won, the enemy broken and bleeding on the ground. Every piece of art was surely priceless. Rare. She asked Cartot how he managed to keep thieves away, but he lifted a set of old iron keys and shook his head. Robbers could not get in or carry away the glories easily. Camille pondered who would come to steal away such horrid scenes. Few would find delight in them.
And the owners of the chateau? Where were they? Ah, Monsieur Cartot pressed a hand to his heart and said he was sad. The government, he told her, had passed a law two years ago expelling former reigning families from France. The owner, a Bourbon descended of Louis-Phillippe, the last king, had given the house to the State. A young rich man purchased it, and it was often used by many businessmen as a temporary residence.
She felt at ease in the cavernous house, though it had not the touch of home which she’d loved in the chateau in Amboise. This one was a hulk, a relic, remnants of people and events gone by. A revolution. A terror. A restoration. A house of old memories, cold and unloved.
Though she’d been here two days, she’d spent at least half of them in the mind-numbing work of rearranging furniture and putting one large table and old Louis Quatorze chair in the sun of the southwest window. It fronted on a small balcony and there she discovered the perfect vista from the hill down over the rooftops of the town to gaze upon the medieval royal castle. It was a mélange of grey stone, red brick and dirty limestone. There, one French king had solidified his rule over this portion of the Loire and the belligerent knights who abused the people and commerce of the longest river in France. The only sign of any more tender emotions were thebas reliefssculpted into the rafters of animals in various poses, ferociously mating.
Her man of all work, Monsieur Cartot was polite. In that, he resembled Barrère. He had no wife. But a cook, he claimed, could be had from the town, if she wished.No, merci, she had begged off. She rather liked to cook for herself. And the local greengrocer’s stall stood not far away down the lane. So too the patisserie.
But as her history lessons ended all too soon, she told herself she should write. Never a job to her, writing came easily.
But not now.
The sun blazed in a long red line to the horizon on the west as she rose from her small repast of fried squashes and onions, bread, and razor clams from thepoissonnier.
She picked up her plates, headed for the kitchen and a quick clean up from her meal. But the sun dropped like a stone over the landscape. She lit a candelabra and puttered about the old kitchen. But her longing for Pierce suffused her.
She sat again in her kitchen chair, pausing, breathless with concern for Pierce and their future.
She closed her eyes. Consoling herself that she’d been right to write to her mother yesterday to tell her where she was, she pushed away the knowledge that she’d hurt Pierce by not writing to him as well.
“What would I say to you?” she asked the sultry night breezes. “I’m sorry?”I’m not.“I don’t know why I’m alone here.”But I do.
I do know. I came to see if I want this.
And I don’t.
Not without you.
Without you, I want a few bright pennies to mark my life. My family. My writing. A few good friends. Adventures in a few new places. But not many. For I am first and foremost an adventurer of the mind.
The longer she sat with these affirmations, the better and happier she was.
By the time she climbed the grand staircase to make her way to up to her boudoir, the huge French Rococo clock with the funny porcelain face of plum peonies and ivory roses chimed the ninth hour.
Tomorrow she would return to Paris and declare what she wanted in life.
