The Talisman Ring Read online

  ‘I don’t think it signifies what you wear if you are on your way to the scaffold,’ replied Sir Tristram, quite unappreciative of the picture his cousin was dwelling on with such evident admiration.

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t you? But consider! You would be very sorry for a young girl in a tumbril, dressed all in white, pale, but quite unafraid, and not attending to the canaille at all, but –’

  ‘I should be very sorry for anyone in a tumbril, whatever their age or sex or apparel,’ interrupted Sir Tristram.

  ‘You would be more sorry for a young girl – all alone, and perhaps bound,’ said Eustacie positively.

  ‘You wouldn’t be all alone. There would be a great many other people in the tumbril with you,’ said Sir Tristram.

  Eustacie eyed him with considerable displeasure. ‘In my tumbril there would not have been a great many other people,’ she said.

  Perceiving that argument on this point would be fruitless, Sir Tristram merely looked sceptical and refrained from speech.

  ‘A Frenchman,’ said Eustacie, ‘would understand at once.’

  ‘I am not a Frenchman,’ replied Sir Tristram.

  ‘Ça se voit!’ retorted Eustacie.

  Sir Tristram served himself from a dish of mutton steaks and cucumber.

  ‘The people whom I have met in England,’ said Eustacie after a short silence, ‘consider it very romantic that I was rescued from the Terror.’

  Her tone suggested strongly that he also ought to consider it romantic, but as he was fully aware that Sylvester had travelled to Paris some time before the start of the Terror, and had removed his granddaughter from France in the most unexciting way possible, he only replied: ‘I dare say.’

  ‘I know a family who escaped from Paris in a cart full of turnips,’ said Eustacie. ‘The soldiers stuck their bayonets into the turnips, too.’

  ‘I trust they did not also stick them into the family?’

  ‘No, but they might easily have done so. You do not at all realize what it is like in Paris now. One lives in constant anxiety. It is even dangerous to step out of doors.’

  ‘It must be a great relief to you to find yourself in Sussex.’

  She fixed her large eyes on his face, and said: ‘Yes, but – do you not like exciting things, mon cousin ?’

  ‘I do not like revolutions, if that is what you mean.’

  She shook her head. ‘Ah no, but romance, and – and adventure!’

  He smiled. ‘When I was eighteen I expect I did.’

  A depressed silence fell. ‘Grandpère says that you will make me a very good husband,’ said Eustacie presently.

  Taken by surprise, Shield replied stiffly: ‘I shall endeavour to do so, cousin.’

  ‘And I expect,’ said Eustacie, despondently inspecting a dish of damson tartlets, ‘that he is quite right. You look to me like a good husband.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Sir Tristram, unreasonably annoyed by this remark. ‘I am sorry that I cannot return the compliment by telling you that you look like a good wife.’

  The gentle melancholy which had descended on Eustacie vanished. She dimpled delightfully, and said: ‘No, I don’t, do I? But do you think that I am pretty?’

  ‘Very,’ answered Shield in a damping tone.

  ‘Yes, so do I,’ said Eustacie. ‘In London I think I might have a great success, because I do not look like an Englishwoman, and I have noticed that the English think that foreigners are very épatantes.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Sir Tristram, ‘London is becoming so full of French émigrés that I doubt whether you would find yourself in any way remarkable.’

  ‘I remember now,’ said Eustacie. ‘You do not like women.’

  Sir Tristram, uncomfortably aware of the footman behind his chair, cast a glance at his cousin’s empty plate, and got up. ‘Let us go into the drawing-room,’ he said. ‘This is hardly the place to discuss such – er – intimate matters!’

  Eustacie, who seemed to regard the servants as so many pieces of furniture, looked round in a puzzled way, but made no objection to leaving the dining-table. She accompanied Sir Tristram to the drawing-room, and said, almost before he had shut the door: ‘Tell me, do you mind very much that you are to marry me?’

  He answered in an annoyed voice: ‘My dear cousin, I do not know who told you that I dislike women, but it is a gross exaggeration.’

  ‘Yes, but do you mind?’

  ‘I should not be here if I minded.’

  ‘Truly? But everybody has to do what Grandpère tells them.’

  ‘Not quite everybody,’ said Shield. ‘Sylvester knows, however, that –’

  ‘You should not call your great-uncle Sylvester!’ interrupted Eustacie. ‘It is not at all respectful.’

  ‘My good child, the whole world has called him Sylvester for the past forty years!’

  ‘Oh!’ said Eustacie doubtfully. She sat down on a sofa upholstered in blue-and-gold striped satin, folded her hands, and looked expectantly at her suitor.

  He found this wide, innocent gaze a trifle disconcerting, but after a moment he said with a gleam of amusement: ‘There is an awkwardness in this situation, cousin, which I, alas, do not seem to be the man to overcome. You must forgive me if I appear to you to be lacking in sensibility. Sylvester has arranged a marriage of convenience for us, and allowed neither of us time to become in the least degree acquainted before we go to the altar.’

  ‘In France,’ replied Eustacie, ‘one is not acquainted with one’s betrothed, because it is not permitted that one should converse with him alone until one is married.’

  This remark certainly seemed to bear out Sylvester’s assurance that his granddaughter understood the nature of his arrangements. Sir Tristram said: ‘It would be absurd to pretend that either of us can feel for the other any of those passions which are ordinarily to be looked for in betrothed couples, but –’

  ‘Oh yes, it would !’ agreed Eustacie heartily.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ pursued Sir Tristram, ‘I believe such marriages as ours often prosper. You have accused me of disliking females, but believe me –’

  ‘I can see very well that you dislike females,’ interrupted Eustacie. ‘I ask myself why it is that you wish to be married.’

  He hesitated, and then answered bluntly: ‘Perhaps if I had a brother I should not wish it, but I am the last of my name, and I must not let it die with me. I shall count myself fortunate if you will consent to be my wife, and so far as it may lie in my power I will promise that you shall not have cause to regret it. May I tell Sylvester that we have agreed to join hands?’

  ‘Qu’importe? It is his command, and naturally he knows we shall be married. Do you think we shall be happy?’

  ‘I hope so, cousin.’

  ‘Yes, but I must tell you that you are not at all the sort of man I thought I should marry. It is very disheartening. I thought that in England one was permitted to fall in love and marry of one’s own choice. Now I see that it is just the same as it is in France.’

  He said with a touch of compassion: ‘You are certainly very young to be married, but when Sylvester dies you will be alone, and your situation would be awkward indeed.’

  ‘That is quite true,’ nodded Eustacie. ‘I have considered it well. And I dare say it will not be so very bad, our marriage, if I can have a house in town, and perhaps a lover.’

  ‘Perhaps a what ?’ demanded Shield, in a voice that made her jump.

  ‘Well, in France it is quite comme il faut – in fact, quite à la mode – to have a lover when one is married,’ she explained, not in the least abashed.

  ‘In England,’ said Sir Tristram, ‘it is neither comme il faut nor à la mode.’

  ‘Vraiment? I do not yet know what is the fashion in England, but naturally if