Charlotte True

Chapter 2: A Hopeful Beginning

One day, the household was abuzz with news that his lordship was to host a country visit from a very famous French naturalist and botanical draughtsman. The man was in need of rest and recovery after a very turbulent and stressful period in the Americas where he had been caught up in some vague and unexplained way in the war there. He was to be left alone to recuperate with minimal interruption or distraction. The idea was apparently, that after his health had recovered, he would join Sir Benjamin in London to work on an important book about the plants, animals and landforms of the Americas.

Charlotte had just retired to her usual spot under the divan with her candle and John Gerard's "The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes", when she heard the door to the library being opened and heavy, halting footsteps moving around the room. She quickly blew out the candle. Eventually, the footsteps moved closer and Charlotte held her breath. From under the divan, she could see that the person intruding her nighttime sanctuary was a man from the size of his shoes and shape of his stockinged legs, and a man of means from the fancy buckle and stylish set of his footwear at that! For a minute, her heart plummeted as she contemplated the possibility that Sir Benjamin had arrived home earlier than planned from London. Imagine what his lordship might do if he was to find a servant hiding under his library settee, with candle and stolen books! The ghost of poor Ethel - O she of the ruined butterfly collection, momentarily seemed to appear before her with warning, alarmed expression. Reacting without thinking, Charlotte reared her head back, hitting the underside timber of the divan.

"Mon dieu! Qu'est ce?"

"Well", thought Charlotte, "unless his lordship's first language is French, which I think not, it's not him! If I reply in French, it might go easier for me", she thought.

"Please do not be alarmed Monsieur it is only a humble servant of his lordship's taking rest and repose this fine evening", she said in her formal French. And then it struck her - of course, this was the famed Henri Le Bas, the French visitor they were expecting. But at this hour? She rather inelegantly scrabbled out from under the divan and peered up into the rather disconcerted, though increasingly amused expression of Monsieur Le Bas.

"Vous parlez francaise! Très bien Mademoiselle! But I must more practise le anglaise, mais non? Especially now I live at the grace of the English hospitality non? Is there another under there? Maybe, you have a - what do they say the English - ah yes, the lover?"

Charlotte was so shocked at the suggestion that she was rendered momentarily speechless. But of course, from his point of view and at this hour of night, what more possibly reasonable explanation for a young woman under a couch in a secluded and frosty room of the house could there be? "Non Monsieur. Please, I am here only to read. Look. Regardez a le livre." She showed him the book.

"Mademoiselle. Speak to me please only in English." Then, taking the book from her he exclaimed, "Ah, Jean Gerard!" making the plain name sound incredibly exotic in French. "What a pity he cannot draw, non? And no attention to the detail of the plants he examines! But, a passable effort of, how you say, overview of the general topic."

Charlotte was unsure how to respond. It rattled her as an English woman that a French man would so criticise her countryman, but she felt entirely unequal to the task of assessing whether Monsieur Le Bas was correct or not. Although her youth left her somewhat ignorant of matters of rank, she realized that she should not be speaking, or rather he should not be speaking in so candid and casual manner, with such as herself, a lowly maid.