XXXIV

While Eustace drank himself stupid – no, what am I saying, his stupidity was already far advanced when sober – while Eustace drank himself insensible among his knights in the hall below, the Comtesse and I made love that evening in the little wardrobe room that had become a kind of second home to us. We indulged in make-believe that we were living in a cottage in the middle of a forest and indeed it seemed like that – a world of wildness, wickedness and the clang of steel outside, people on the move, soldiers, beggars, people dispossessed, madmen, witches and devils.

I was beginning to like the boy Roger. He was a brave little chap, only eight years old and never been away from home before; missing his mother, no doubt, but putting a brave face on it. He was sleeping in the girls’ room, with the old nurse on a truckle bed in a tiny closet room outside. He had not been scared of the dark before, but this particular night he apparently woke shouting, frightened half out of his wits by a dream he’d had. This woke the nurse and she tried to comfort him, but it seemed to no avail. By this time we were awake, and I had time to slip on some clothes and come down to the bedroom.

‘Now, now,’ I said, ‘what is the matter here? I thought it was a nest of owls hooting in the night.’

‘The boy had a dream,’ the old nurse told me.

He hardly seemed to be awake yet, and was staring ahead as if he had seen a ghost.

‘Come, Roger,’ I said, gently, ‘what is the matter?’

‘I couldn’t see what it was my mother was telling me,’ he said. ‘There was something important she wanted to tell me, something bad that was coming in the dark, that I could not see. But it was coming. I knew it was. I had to get away.’

I realised that the boy had not seen a ghost. What was upsetting him was that, in his dream, he couldn’t see whatever it was his mother was warning him about. That was the reason for the fixed stare and the haunted expression.

‘Come,’ I said to the boy, ‘back to sleep. Very soon you’ll see your room again at Ivry, but meanwhile you have me and Nanny to look after you, and I’m sure your dear mother will be cross with me if she thought I hadn’t done a good job.’

The boy relaxed. He had a kind heart.

‘Oh, but you have,’ he said, looking first at me and then at the kindly old nurse. ‘I would never say that you hadn’t. I was frightened, that’s all. And my father says a page must never show fear, especially in the face of the enemy or before a lady.’

‘Quite right,’ I replied, as the nurse smiled at his childish earnestness, ‘but you can show fear in front of friends. That is what friends are for.’

‘Do you think so?’ said the boy.

‘Very much so,’ I said. ‘What do you think, Nanny?’

‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘You can show friends the truth. That is why we pray for them at night. It is a precious thing.’

The boy smiled. It was an enchanting smile with a touch of sadness in it, as though his life had been lonely in the castle of Ivry. We tucked the boy up and left a rush light in the room to drive away the spooks, and almost before we had left the room, he was asleep again.

Then the old nurse told me something that made me ashamed of my carelessness and manly talk. He was only a little boy.

‘The boy does not have a mother,’ she said. ‘His mother died a year ago.’