The Soldier's Dark Secret

Chapter Five

‘So this is where you’re hiding.’

Celeste forced herself to turn around slowly. Jack stood hesitantly in the doorway, dressed in his customary breeches and boots. She willed the flush of embarrassment she could feel creeping up her neck not to show on her face. ‘It is safe to come in,’ she said. ‘I am not going to descend into a fit of hysterics or stamp my feet or even run away again.’

He strode over to her, his relief obvious. ‘I’m sorry, Celeste,’ he said. ‘It was not my intention to cause you upset yesterday.’

‘Cassis was not a happy place for me when I was growing up,’ she said carefully. ‘I don’t like to talk of it or even think of those days. En effet, I never do. It is in the past where it belongs.’

And she would make sure it remained there. It sounded contrary, considering the accusations she had flung at Jack yesterday, but their cases were not the same, she had decided after another sleepless night. She had come to terms with her past, he had not. What she needed to concentrate on now was dealing with her mother’s past. Which was a separate issue.

Slanting a look at Jack, she was not surprised to catch him studying her, but she was relieved when he nodded his acceptance, albeit reluctantly. ‘Charlie,’ he said, turning his attention to the portrait she had been examining. ‘Aged about five, I think. What brings you to the portrait gallery?’

‘I was interested to see how the estate had been depicted previously, to avoid the risk of replicating any existing works.’

‘Ah, so you’re here purely in the name of artistic research and not at all out of curiosity?’

Celeste smiled. ‘Naturally.’ She turned to the next work, a family portrait, which showed a youthful Jack and Charlie sitting at their parents’ feet. ‘You looked much more alike as children than you do as adults. You both take after your mother rather than your father, I fancy.’

‘So my mother was forever saying. It was a matter of pride to her that Charlie and I bore the McDonald countenance and not the Trestain visage,’ Jack said, reaching out to draw the outline of his mother’s face on the canvas with his finger. ‘She was a Scot, and verrrrry, verrrry proud of the fact,’ he said in a ham-fisted attempt at a Scottish burr.

‘You miss her?’

‘She died when I was in Spain, about six years ago. But, yes, I do miss her. She wanted me to join the Scots Greys, but my father put his foot down on that one. Nevertheless, she always claimed that my fighting spirit as well as my nose came from her side of the family. Here she is, a good deal younger, in her wedding portrait, with my maternal grandfather.’

Celeste eyed the picture of the fierce man in Highland dress. He looked very much like Jack did when he was angry. ‘Would you have had to wear one of those skirts if you joined the—the...’

‘Scots Greys. No, only the Highland regiments wear kilts.’

‘Tant pis. That is a pity. It would suit you uncommonly well, I think,’ Celeste said. ‘You have the most excellent legs for it.’

‘You speak merely as an observant artist, of course?’

She felt herself colour slightly. ‘Naturally. Is there a picture of you wearing your regimental uniform?’

Jack rolled his eyes. ‘In full ceremonial dress, no less, looking like I’ve a poker up my—looking as if I’ve swallowed a poker. Charlie commissioned it when I was promoted. Here, take a quick look if you must.’

He put his arm around her shoulders and steered her to the far end of the small gallery, where the portrait, in its expensive gilt frame, was hung to take best advantage of the light. ‘Your brother must have spent a small fortune on this,’ Celeste said, raising her brows at the artist’s signature. ‘A full-length study. He is obviously very proud of you, Lieutenant-Colonel.’ She waited for Jack’s customary glower at any mention of the army, but to her surprise it did not surface.

He looked very forbidding in the portrait. His hair was cropped much shorter, barely noticeable under the huge crested helmet he wore with its extravagant black horsehair tail. He stood very tall and straight, his hand resting on the hilt of his sabre, his face looking haughtily off into the distance. The scarlet coat was extremely tight-fitting, showing off his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the high, braided collar framing his jaw. White breeches and long, glossy black boots drew attention to his muscular legs. ‘Which regiment did you belong to?’

‘Dragoons,’ Jack said abstractedly. ‘Of course we didn’t wear those ridiculous helmets or the white breeches when going into battle. What do you think of it?’

‘As an artist? It is a technically flawless work. As a viewer, it speaks unmistakably of authority. It depicts you with a—a certain hauteur. I think I would be just a little bit intimidated by the man in the portrait. I would of a certainty obey his orders unquestioningly. If I was one of his men, that is,’ she added quickly.

Jack laughed. ‘I doubt you would follow even Napoleon’s orders.’

‘No, I would have made a very bad soldier. But you, you look—bien—exactly what you were, a high-ranking British officer, used to unwavering obedience and with the air of a Greek god, gazing down on us mere mortals.’

‘Good grief, you make me sound like a pompous ass.’

‘No, not pompous, supremely confident. Very sure of yourself.’

‘I suppose I was.’

Jack was staring at the portrait as if it were of a stranger, just as she had stared at the miniature of her mother only the other day. She was still struggling to equate the beautiful woman in the portrait with the Maman in her mind’s eye. Art could obscure reality as well as portray it. Which was the real Blythe Marmion? Which was the real Jack Trestain? Had the regal, commanding officer in the portrait ever existed? Jack was asking himself the same question, judging by the expression on his face.

‘This likeness was taken less than three years ago,’ he said. ‘I left the army less than three months ago, yet it seems as if a lifetime has passed. I struggle to recognise myself. I can barely remember being the man in the portrait. I thought, you know, that if I re-enlisted, I might— I was fine then. Seeing this—I can’t imagine it now.’

He turned away, heading across the room to the farthest point away from the portrait. I was fine then. For the first time, he had admitted that he was not fine now. What had happened to him? More than ever, she longed to know, but Celeste bit back the questions she was desperate to ask, the answers she would have demanded only a few short days ago. Memories were painful things. Memories were private things. Some memories, as she had learnt only yesterday, were too painful to be shared.

It was like Pandora’s box, her memory. Every time the lid creaked open a fraction, it became more and more difficult to close. Things she wanted to forget wriggled free. Things that reminded her she had not always been the person she was so proud of now. She did not want to be reminded of that person. She would never again be that person.

And Jack? With Jack it was very different. The soldier in the portrait had been a respected and admired officer, one mentioned in despatches, whatever that meant. The man he had become was fighting a different battle now. He had his demons, just as she had her ghosts. No doubt she was just a foolish artist, but she admired this man’s bravery a great deal more.

She rejoined him in front of another full-length painting. ‘And who is this remarkable specimen?’ Celeste asked him brightly.

‘This is my father’s brother, also called Jack,’ he replied. ‘As you can see, aside from our name, we have precious little in common.’

The man was fat, fair and flamboyant in a claret-velvet suit, gazing winsomely out at the viewer, a silver jug in one hand, a book in the other. ‘Household Accounts,’ Celeste read in puzzlement. ‘How very strange. Usually when a man holds a book in a portrait it is to symbolise his learning.’

Jack smiled wryly. ‘In this particular case it symbolises his notorious thriftiness. This next lady now, my Aunt Christina, is my mother’s youngest sister, known as Auntie Kirsty. She is married to a real Highland laird and lives in a genuine Highland castle. Charlie and I used to love visiting them. It was a real adventure for us. My mother hated it up there, for it was freezing cold, winter and summer, and Auntie Kirsty is one of those women who hasn’t much of an opinion of soap and water. Frankly,’ Jack said, grinning, ‘Auntie Kirstie smells exactly like her deerhounds when they’ve been out in the rain. But she’s one of the best fishermen I’ve ever come across, and she can shoot better than almost any trooper I’ve ever trained. You can see the castle in the background there, and this dog here, that’s Calum, her favourite deerhound of the time, though most likely long gone.’ His smile faded. ‘I’ve not been there in many years.’

‘Now you are no longer tied to the army, you could visit her, if you wished.’

‘No. Auntie Kirstie is almost as bad as my mother was for basking in my exploits.’

‘You mean she was proud of you?’

‘They all were, and I was arrogant enough to think I deserved it.’ Jack reached out to touch his aunt’s face, the same gesture he’d used on the portrait of his mother. ‘I considered myself a good soldier.’

‘And the Duke of Wellington agreed,’ Celeste reminded him.

‘Yes, he did, but it all depends on your perspective.’

He spoke not bitterly, but resignedly. His expression was bleak, the despair not so marked as on that first, unguarded day at the lake, but it was manifestly still there in his eyes. She longed to comfort him, but how? The more he said about the army, the more she realised his relationship with it was complex, perhaps impossible for anyone who was not a soldier to understand. He loved the army, he clearly had loved being a soldier, but he spoke of those days as if it were a different person. As if it was not him. As if he would not allow it to have been him. And so perhaps they were kindred spirits after all.

The door to the portrait gallery burst open, and a small whirlwind of a boy came hurtling in, making a beeline for Jack. ‘Please will you take me fishing, Uncle Jack?’

‘Robert, make your bow to Mademoiselle Marmion,’ Jack said, detaching the grubby little hand which was clutching the pocket of his breeches. ‘This, Mademoiselle, is my nephew.’

‘How do you do?’ The child made a perfunctory bow before turning his beseeching countenance back to his uncle. ‘Will you take me fishing? Only Papa was supposed to take me but I think he has quite forgotten, and even though Papa says he always caught the biggest fish when you were little...’

Jack laughed. ‘Oh, he did, did he?’

Robert nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, and Papa would not lie, Uncle Jack.’

Jack dropped down on to his knees to be level with the child whose eyes were the exact same shade of dark brown, Celeste noted, as his own. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you are quite right. Papa would not lie.’

‘But you mustn’t feel bad, because he told me you were the much better shot.’ Robert patted Jack’s shoulder consolingly, making Celeste stifle a giggle. ‘Papa said that when you were only six, which is just a little bit bigger than me, you shot a pigeon this high up in the sky,’ he said, standing on his tiptoes and stretching his arm above his head. ‘Only Papa said that it was very naughty of you, because you weren’t supposed to have the gun, and Grandpapa was very angry, and he gave you a sound whipping, and Papa too, even though he did not shoot the gun, and I think that’s not fair. Do you think that’s fair, Uncle Jack, do you?’

‘Well, I...’

‘Though maybe,’ Robert continued, having drawn breath, ‘maybe,’ he said, plucking at Jack’s shirt, ‘Papa was whipped because he is the eldest and did not show a good example? That is what he said I am to do, when Baby Donal is older. So maybe you would not have stolen the gun and shot the pigeon if Papa had told you not to?’

‘Perhaps,’ Jack said, his eyes alight with laughter but his expression serious, ‘though I was a very naughty boy when I was your age. I tended not to do as I was told, I’m afraid.’

Robert considered this, his head on one side. ‘Is that why you are not a soldier any more? Did you disobey orders?’

Jack sat back on his heels, the light fading from his eyes. ‘I did not, but I wish to God I had.’

Celeste caught her breath at this, but Robert had already moved on. ‘Uncle Jack, will you tell me about the time when you told the Duke of Wellington about that great big fort, and he said that it was a ruin, but you knew better. And there was a big battle and—and will you tell me, because when Papa tells me, he gets it all mixed up and forgets the regiments, and it is not the same as when you tell it.’

Jack winced. ‘Robert, the war is over now.’

‘But you were there and you saw it with your own eyes,’ the child continued, heedless.

‘Robert...’

‘Robert, I think perhaps your uncle...’ Celeste interjected.

Robert stamped his foot. ‘It is not fair! Why must I not ask you? Why won’t you tell me, when you have told Papa?’

‘Because Papa is a grown up. Because it was a long time ago,’ Jack said.

‘Well then, why will you not tell me about Waterloo? That was not a long time ago.’

‘Robert,’ Jack said, getting to his feet, obviously agitated, ‘I think it is best...’

‘But I only wanted to know what it was like,’ the child said, grabbing at his uncle’s leg, his face screwed up with temper, ‘because Steven, who is my best, best friend in the whole village, his papa fought under Sir Thomas Picton at Waterloo in the Fifth Infantry, and I said that you were much more important than even Sir Thomas Picton, and Steven said you could not be...’

‘Enough, child, for pity’s sake!’ Jack’s roar was so unexpected that Robert stopped in mid-flow, his jaw hanging open. Celeste, who felt as if her heart had attempted to jump out of her chest, was also speechless.

Jack pointed at the door. ‘Out! You would test the patience of a saint. No war stories, today or ever. Have I made myself perfectly clear?’ He glowered at the child.

Robert’s lip trembled, but he held his ground. ‘I hate you.’ He stamped his foot again. ‘I hate you,’ he said and burst into tears, storming from the room, violently slamming the door behind him.

Shaken, white-faced, Jack slumped on to the sofa which was placed in the middle of the room and dropped his head, pinching the furrow between his brows hard. He rubbed his forehead viciously, as if he were trying to erase whatever thoughts lurked behind it. ‘I frightened him,’ he said starkly. ‘He’s five years old, for goodness’ sake, and I yelled at him as if he’d turned up on the parade ground without his musket. What the hell is wrong with me?’

‘Jack, I don’t think he was so very frightened. It seemed to me he was more angry than afraid.’

‘What blasted difference does it make? He ran away, bawling his eyes out, and that was my fault.’ Jack jumped to his feet, his fists clenched. ‘I’ve never upset a child like that before. What on earth is happening to me?’

‘Jack, I—’

‘No, don’t say another word.’ He rounded on her. ‘You! That is what is behind this. Ever since you— As if I didn’t have enough on my mind without having to lie awake thinking of you and your damned kisses and your damned questions. Why can’t I eat? Why can’t I sleep? Why do I— What did you call it?’

‘Disappear.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper. His anger was not directed at her, but it terrified her, the depths of his anxiety. Though he loomed over her, she stood her ground. ‘Jack...’

He threw her hand from his arm. ‘Don’t pity me. I neither require nor desire your pity, Mademoiselle. I want—I want...’ He flung himself back on to the sofa and dropped his head into his hands. ‘Hell’s teeth, I don’t know what I want. I’m sorry. I’m better left to my own devices at the moment. Best if you leave.’

Celeste turned to do as he bid her, remembering her own desire yesterday to retire to her bedchamber and lick her wounds, but then she stopped, and instead sat down on the sofa beside him. ‘I don’t feel sorry for you, Jack. I don’t know what I feel for you, to be honest, but I know it’s not pity.’

He did not look up, but he did not turn away either.

She wasn’t sure what it was she was trying to say. She was reluctant to say anything, especially if it was an unpalatable truth, but she knew she couldn’t leave him like this, bereft and seemingly lost. ‘You were correct,’ she said, though it made her feel quite sick to admit it, ‘when you said that Maman’s death was— That it meant more to me than I thought. You were right.’

Jack lifted his head. Celeste had to fight the urge to run away. She dug her feet into the wooden floor. ‘I blamed you yesterday for what I was feeling. I thought, if it hadn’t been for you, I would not be feeling—’ She broke off, raising her hands helplessly. ‘I don’t know what. Something, as opposed to nothing.’

‘I’m sorry. I had no right to pry.’

‘No more than I did, but it didn’t stop me either. I am sorry too.’

‘I never used to have such a foul temper, you know.’

‘Moi aussi, never. Perhaps there is something in the air at Trestain Manor.’

Jack’s smile was perfunctory, but it was a smile. ‘I don’t know what Charlie is playing at, telling Robert those stupid stories, making it sound as if war is some great adventure.’

‘Isn’t that what you thought at that age?’ Celeste asked carefully.

‘Precisely.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘And now I know better.’

‘Jack, Robert is just a little boy. He doesn’t need or deserve to have his illusions shattered at such a tender age. Why not indulge him a little? What is so different, really, from telling him the kind of stories you once told your brother?’

‘I only ever told Charlie the kind of things he wanted to hear.’

‘Exactement.’

He was silent for a long time. Finally, he shook his head, pressed her hand and got to his feet. ‘I need some fresh air, and you are probably wanting to get on with your work. I’m going to try to manage an hour on horseback without falling off.’

‘But your arm...’

‘Will recover faster if I use the blasted thing. I’m not made of glass. Besides,’ Jack added with a grin, ‘you’ve no idea how embarrassing it is for an officer of the Dragoons to fall from his horse. If any of my comrades knew, I’d never be allowed to forget it.’

* * *

The next day, as Jack had predicted it would, it was raining. Not the kind of polite, soft rain that Celeste had imagined would fall in an English summer, but a heavy downpour rather like the kind of summer storm in Cassis that turned the narrow streets into raging torrents. Gazing out of the windows of her studio, it was as if the sky consisted of one leaden grey cloud that had been sliced open. Water poured from the gutters on to the paths, cutting new channels into the flower beds. The branches of the trees bent under the weight of the deluge.

Celeste shivered, wrapping the shawl she had fetched after breakfast more tightly around her, for the flimsy sprigged-muslin gown she wore was no protection against the cold, damp air. She looked longingly at the small fireplace, imagining the comfort of a fire. In August! She doubted that the hardy Lady Eleanor would think it necessary.

It was too dark to work, and too wet to go outside. Sir Charles, fretting about the harvest, was planning on a tour of the closest farms, though when his wife had quizzed him on what he thought could be achieved, other than a thorough drenching, he had been unable to supply her with an answer. Lady Eleanor was to spend the morning in the kitchen making jam. A task she and her sisters used to look forward to every year when they were growing up, she had told Celeste over the breakfast table. She hoped to pass her receipts on to her own daughters, when they arrived, but in the meantime, she would be sharing the task with cook. She did not ask Celeste if she wanted to join them in the kitchen.

‘And I am glad she did not, for I know nothing at all about making jam or pickles or any of these things the English take such pride in,’ Celeste muttered to herself. The truth was, she thought, looking despondently out at the garden, she knew almost nothing about French cooking either. Frowning, she tried to recall if she had ever seen her mother in the kitchen, and could not. They had always had a cook. Her mother planned the meals, she recalled, writing out the menus for the week in the book in which she kept painstaking household accounts, but, no, not once could Celeste recall her actually shopping for food or preparing it. Then, at school, the kitchens were out of bounds, and in her Parisian garret, she could make coffee, but nothing more substantial.

She leafed through her sketches, which were laid out on a large table set against the wall. She didn’t even like jam, but when Lady Eleanor talked about sharing the task with her sisters, Celeste had felt quite envious. There had been a softness about her ladyship too, as she speculated about a time when her yet-to-be-born daughter would join her in the kitchen. Celeste cast her sketches aside and returned to the window. Was there nothing, no small domestic task she and her mother had shared?

Painting. Yes, there were the painting and drawing lessons, though there were so many that, to Celeste’s frustration, the memory was blurred. She could remember spending hours and hours trying to draw a cat. She could remember struggling to hold her brush in the correct manner. She could remember painting endless bowls of fruit. But her memories were all of her hand, the paper, the paints, the result. She could not recall what her mother had said of any of her work. Could not remember a single occasion when her father—Henri, she corrected herself—had passed any opinion at all on her talent. In fact she could not remember him being present at all.

Outside, the rain was easing. Sir Charles would be relieved. The grass looked much greener, almost too glossy to be real. The trees too looked freshly painted. They reminded her of the idealised pictures in a storybook that her mother used to read to her. She had forgotten that. Returning to the sofa, she sat down and closed her eyes. Her mother was reading the story, her finger pointing to the words so that Celeste could follow along. The book was in English. Where had it come from? Had it been her mother’s as a child? The pages had been worn. The book contained several stories, each beautifully illustrated. An expensive book.

Celeste screwed her eyes shut tighter and tried to recall her mother’s voice, but though she could see the pictures so clearly, she couldn’t hear any accompanying words. Frustrated, she tried to recall other times. Sewing. Her mother had taught her to sew. Not the practical kind that she had been taught at school, but embroidery. Yes, yes, another memory swam into view. She was sitting on a stool at her mother’s knee. ‘When the first course is served at such a grand dinner,’ Maman was saying, ‘one must turn to the right, so I had to wait until the second course to speak to him.’

Celeste’s eyes flew open. She stared around the room, as if her mother might appear from behind the easel. Her voice had been so clear. ‘Mon Dieu, of all the things, I remember that most useless piece of advice!’

‘What most useless piece of advice would that be?’

‘Jack.’ Celeste jumped to her feet, clutching her shawl. ‘You startled me.’

‘Sleeping on the job?’

‘I was not sleeping,’ she said indignantly, ‘I was thinking.’ She eyed his wet hair, sleeked back on his head, with astonishment. ‘You have surely not been swimming in this?’

‘Why not?’

She wrapped her arms around herself, giving a mock shudder. ‘It is freezing.’

‘Nonsense, a little summer rain, that’s all. You’ll be asking for the fire to be lit next.’ She must have looked longingly at the empty hearth, because Jack burst out laughing.

‘If you think it is cold now, you should try enduring an English country winter. Which you will not be required to do, since once your business here is concluded I assume you will be anxious to return to your life in Paris.’

‘Of course I am.’ And she was. Everything she had achieved had been hard-earned and she was looking forward to picking up the threads of her life.

* * *

Jack put the leatherbound folder which he had brought with him down on the table next to her sketches. ‘Celeste, have you considered the possibility that whatever we manage to uncover about your mother’s past might change things, maybe even change your life, the one you’re so keen to reclaim, irrevocably?’

She pursed her lips, shaking her head firmly. ‘I thought I’d made myself plain, I have no ambition to claim any family, legitimate or not, if that is what you mean. Clearly, my mother’s family disowned her. Equally clearly, my father’s family disowned both my mother and me. Frankly, being the unwanted child of one man means I have no wish to repeat the experience as far as my father is concerned, and as to my mother—again, no. Her family rejected her. My mother rejected me. You see the pattern, Jack. Whatever we find will allow me to regain my life, not destroy it.’

She spoke carefully, but coolly. The barriers were well and truly in place once more, but still Jack felt uneasy. She was fragile, she had admitted that much yesterday. He wanted to spare her pain, but he had not that right. All he could do was help her, and hope that the price she paid was worth it.

Jack opened the folder. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘let us set to work on getting you the answers you need. First things first. Let’s take stock of where we are and what we know.’