The Talisman Ring

‘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 –’