Читать книгу Celebration - Rosie Thomas - Страница 6

Light filtered in through the blinds, defining the outlines of pieces of furniture that only minutes ago had been vague shapes of denser blackness. Valentine Gordon, lying on his back in bed with his hands clasped behind his head, breathed out sharply in irritation. He rolled his head to one side to look at the green numerals of the digital clock. It was 4.23, and he hadn’t slept at all. He turned his head the other way, towards the tangle of white-blonde hair and the exposed shoulders and neat breasts of the girl sleeping beside him. Her breathing went on, as even and deep as it had been for four hours, ever since he had rolled away from her and begun his long stare up into the darkness. He put his hand out to touch the tanned skin, thinking he might as well wake her up and make love to her again. Then he frowned and jerked his hand back. He knew that she would be instantly responsive, yawning and kittenish, and the idea bored him.

Instead he swung his legs out of the bed and groped for his bathrobe. He felt sticky, in spite of the cool air-conditioned room, randy, and irritable. He wanted something, or somebody, but it definitely wasn’t Sam. If he left her asleep at least she wouldn’t follow him around talking and giggling. He wrapped the robe around himself and walked away from her, treading very softly. It was dark in the corridor outside but he moved faster, very sure of his surroundings, through another doorway and across a big room to a wide expanse of curtained window. He pressed a wall switch and the curtains slid back, letting the room fill with the dawn light. It was getting brighter every minute. The touch of another switch set up a tiny humming noise and the long panels of glass glided away. The air that flooded in from the verandah was perfumed and still warm from the heat of the day before, but at least it was fresh. Valentine stepped outside and leant on the white-painted rail to stare out at the view.

Immediately below him three white steps ran down from the raised wooden verandah to the wide circle of well-watered lawn. Beyond the grass, with its fringe of cedar trees, was the low wall which separated the garden of Valentine’s house from the focus of his attention. He was looking out at the vineyards, a sea of grey-green foliage, that swept away from him across the valley floor. Behind the house the sun was well over the horizon and the sky over the steep hills enclosing the valley was beginning to turn the electrically bright blue of the Californian August. It was very, very quiet.

Most of what he could see, including the impressive wood and stone winery just visible along the track to the left of the house, belonged to him but the knowledge didn’t give him, any more, the frisson of pleasure that it once had. Instead one half of his mind mechanically listed the jobs he must attend to today while the other nagged around a deeper, uncomfortable awareness. Valentine knew that he was bored, and he knew that boredom dragged a different, dangerous Valentine out into the sunlight.

He turned sharply away from the beauty of the Napa Valley, intending to go inside and mix a big Bloody Mary to take the uncomfortable innocence off the day. Then the ache between his eyes reminded him of the night before, and instead he flopped down on one of the cushioned loungers that lined the verandah. This side of the house faced west and was pleasantly shadowed, and the leaves of the bougainvillea festooning the fretted woodwork waved in a light, warm breeze. Valentine pulled off his robe and dropped it beside him, rolled over on to his stomach and stretched naked against the cushions. Seconds later he was asleep.

At nine o’clock it was already hot and the breeze had dropped. Sam came out of the open glass doors carrying a tray with orange juice and a pot of coffee. Valentine was still asleep, one arm dangling off the lounger and the other cradled under his head. The girl bent to put the tray down beside him and noticed that there were two or three silver hairs in the crisp blackness over his temples. Her eyes ran over his body. Valentine Gordon was thirty, she knew that he ate and slept too little and drank too much, but he still had the physique of a twenty-year-old athlete, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. Sam knelt beside him and kissed the small of his back, letting her hair brush his skin. He stirred at once, then rolled over with sleep still clouding his blue eyes. He didn’t smile, but she was used to that.

‘Coffee first, Sam.’

She poured him a cup and he drained it thirstily. Then he pulled her down beside him, unbuttoning her loose shirt and sliding his hands over her small breasts. Sam closed her eyes.

He made love expertly, apparently giving it all his attention, but as the girl moaned and whimpered beneath him Valentine’s ears were full of nothing but the birdsong in the garden. Afterwards he disentangled himself from her arms and lit a cigarette. At last he was looking straight at her.

‘Sam. I’m sorry, but it’s over.’ He clenched his teeth as he saw her pansy-purple eyes fill with tears. There would be no platitudes, no talk of how it would be best for both of them. At least he owed her that.

‘Valentine,’ she was saying, softly and unbelievingly, shaking her head to and fro so that the tears rolled. ‘Oh, Valentine, please, no.’

Halfway across the world, in the formal splendour of the big drawing-room at Château Reynard, another woman was saying his name.

‘In the Napa Valley,’ Bell Farrer said brightly, ‘with Valentine Gordon, of Dry Stone Wineries.’

As she spoke, Bell was thinking that it had been the strangest, happiest birthday of her life.

At breakfast-time she had found the brother and sister waiting for her in the sunny dining-room. Bell was relieved to see that there was still no sign of Hélène.

‘Happy birthday,’ carolled Juliette. Charles was standing in his accustomed place between the tall windows and his face was in shadow. Bell felt rather than saw that he was watching her intently.

Juliette was pouring orange juice out of a glass jug and Bell saw it was foaming.

‘Mmmmm. Buck’s Fizz. A real birthday breakfast treat.’

‘Now,’ said Juliette, ‘this is from me.’ She pointed to a shape swathed in blue tissue beside Bell’s plate. Bell peeled the paper away and stared down at the miniature sculpture resting in her cupped hands. It was the head and shoulders of a little girl, modelled in reddish clay, and the features were so full of life that Bell thought she could almost hear the child’s piping voice. The face was impish, unmistakably French.

‘Juliette, how beautiful. Is it yours?’

‘My work, yes. Now it’s yours to take home and remind you of us.’

‘Who is she?’

‘The child? She is the daughter of … Catherine’s sister. The same age as …’ There was an abrupt movement from Charles and Juliette faltered. Then the words came tumbling out again, too fast. ‘Well, no one that you would know. I did a lot of studies of her at one time, much bigger than this. Yours was a preliminary maquette, but more successful somehow than the bigger pieces.’

‘I shall treasure it,’ said Bell simply, and hugged her.

Charles stepped forward. The sunlight caught the blondness of his head as he put his hands on Bell’s arms and kissed her quickly on each cheek. The brush of his skin reminded Bell of the night before and she caught her breath.

‘And this is from me,’ he told her.

It was a smaller package, this one wrapped in white tissue paper. Bell held it for a second in her fingers, unable to think of anything but the closeness of Charles himself.

‘Go on, open it,’ prompted Juliette. ‘I want to see what it is, too.’

Charles’s present to her was a narrow ivory bangle, intricately carved with wreaths of vine leaves and bunches of grapes. Bell turned it to and fro under his gaze, marvelling at the delicacy of the workmanship.

‘Phew,’ said Juliette. ‘Clever you, Chariot.’

Bell slipped the little creamy circle on to her wrist and stretched her arm out to admire it. At last she looked up at Charles.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s exquisite. Whenever I wear it I will think of you.’

‘That was definitely the intention.’

How sexy, thought Bell, is the combination of those formal manners with the set of his mouth and the look in his eyes.

He made her feel like a girl again, a little in awe of him, fascinated, bewildered and entranced.

Later, he had said, ‘May I take you into Bordeaux for lunch? There is a restaurant I think you will like, and it will give us a chance to talk.’ Bell had nodded, not knowing whether to feel excited or apprehensive. Her own thoughts were in an impossible whirl, and she found it was beyond her to gauge what Charles was thinking.

Charles had driven her into Bordeaux in the grey Mercedes, leaving the streams of Citroëns and Renaults almost standing behind them. He looked relaxed at the wheel, evidently enjoying the speed, and Bell was content to sit in silence, watching the vineyards flashing past. They drove into the middle of the handsome city and Charles eased his car into a space in the broad Alleés de Tourny. He took her arm and guided her through the traffic, then led her down a narrow side street lined with tall, blank-faced houses.

Bell had been to Bordeaux often before, but this time she looked at it through new eyes. It was where Charles belonged, amongst the elegant eighteenth-century architecture and the calm, discreet prosperity.

A few more steps brought them to a nondescript green-painted door. Charles opened it for her and they walked into a little square hallway where a grey-haired woman in a black dress sat at a desk.

‘Ah, Baron Charles, bonjour,’ she said at once, adding ‘et madame’ as her eyes travelled over Bell. Charles bent to kiss the woman’s hand.

‘Madame Lestoq,’ he murmured and Bell could not help turning to stare in surprise. Charles acknowledged her look with a flicker of one eyelid, almost a wink, as they followed Madame into the dining-room.

There were only ten tables, all but one of them occupied, and they were separated by what looked like yards of carpet. Bell said nothing until they were sitting facing one another across the starched white cloth and glistening silver of a corner table.

‘So this is Chez Lestoq.’

‘Of course. Where else, on your birthday?’

Bell knew that the food in this tiny restaurant was legendary, almost as legendary as the difficulty of securing a table. She suddenly remembered that Charles had only heard about her birthday a matter of hours ago. He must wield impressive influence to arrange for her to sit so casually in the best corner of the room.

‘Well,’ she said, laughing, ‘I don’t think I shall be able to match the splendour of all this with much brilliant conversation. I want to concentrate on every miraculous mouthful.’

‘I will make do with just looking at you.’

Bell had wanted to read the menu syllable by syllable, but Charles waved it away and ordered, quickly and decisively, for both of them. Bell opened her mouth to protest, and then thought better of it.

The food, when it came, was perfect, of course. But afterwards, when she came to try and recall what she had eaten, the memory of the meal was just an exotic blur. She remembered the facts of truffle soup under a fragile golden pastry dome, their shared lobster in its veil of piquant sauce, pink lamb redolent of tarragon and a perfect concoction of summer fruits in a silver dish. Yet all she could really recall was the pleasure of being with Charles.

As they ate he told her about his childhood, and Juliette’s, at Château Reynard. He described the old baron, a fierce and stubborn disciplinarian with the roll of the seasons from vintage to vintage in his blood.

When he died he had entrusted Reynard to Charles, and his son had accepted the charge proudly. To Charles, that meant keeping the property as his father had left it.

Bell asked gently whether for the good of the château Charles might not adopt some of the new, labour-saving technology. She meant that perhaps his father’s wishes could be more liberally interpreted.

The blue eyes snapped with sudden anger and his mouth tightened into a hard line.

‘Never. We have made some of the greatest wines in the world in exactly the same way for hundreds of years. Why should I imagine that I have the right to change everything, for the sake of a few extra bottles or a few more francs?’

Bell looked down at her plate. Charles de Gillesmont was not the kind of man who would suffer an argument about his heritage.

Then, seeing her discomfort, he reached out and put his hand over hers.

‘You are such a child of the twentieth century, Bell. You have so much … freedom, to be the kind of person you want. But can’t you understand how it is for me?’

Bell nodded. Yes, in a way she could, and she could sympathize. Yet – beyond that – with Charles’s deep-rooted certainty and her own needle-sharp newness, what a team they could make against the rest of the world.

‘I do understand,’ was all she said.

Charles lifted her hand, turned it over and kissed the palm in a gesture as openly sexy as if he had reached across the table to unbutton her dress.

‘You do understand,’ he breathed. Around the room the eyes of the other diners returned discreetly to their plates.

Afterwards, outside the unmarked green door, they turned without speaking and strolled towards the Quai des Chartrous.

The watery, dockside tang of sea air penetrated the pall of exhaust fumes, and food smells from the clustering restaurants, beckoning them on.

Beside the oily, grey-blue water they fell into step, still in silence.

When Bell glanced at him she saw that Charles was frowning. When the sensuality of his mouth and the humanity in his eyes were masked, he looked as cold and aristocratic as the profile on an ancient coin.

At length he turned to look at her.

‘I seem always to be asking you to understand things, Bell. I know you can, and will. That’s why I feel myself drawn to you, as I haven’t to anyone else … for years and years.’

Bell was watching him, waiting. He took a deep breath.

‘Do you understand what it means, being a Catholic?’

So that was it. She had known it all along, really.

Yet Bell listened in silence as Charles talked about his faith, knowing that he was offering her a rare confidence.

As a child, he told her, Catholicism had seemed the simplest, most natural thing in the world. As much a part of life as eating and drinking. God had been safely in his heaven, watching and knowing and forgiving of the little, innocent childhood sins. The faith had seemed to Charles, as a small boy, like a magic talisman with its comforting, opaque rituals.

It was only with adulthood that the tests had come.

Then Charles, made aloof and lonely by his upbringing except for the closeness of Juliette, had fallen in love. Or thought he had.

He was nineteen years old.

Jeanne was older, the daughter of a baker. She had a pale, ethereal beauty that was utterly at odds with her robustly passionate nature. They had become lovers almost at once.

Charles was enthralled but at the same time tortured with guilt. Jeanne had had her sights set firmly on marriage, but Charles even at the height of his passion knew that that was impossible. For weeks he had wavered, tasting the illicit delights that Jeanne was only too pleased to share with him. He stayed away from church, promising himself that each time they made love it would be the last.

Then he had steeled himself to make his confession.

His priest had told him exactly what he had known all along. There must be no more Jeanne.

She had fought to keep him, using every weapon in her armoury, but he had kept faith.

Then he had missed her, achingly, month after month.

Almost ten years later he had met Catherine, who had the same dark beauty as Jeanne. The moment he saw her he was reminded of his old, agonizing love. Yet here was Catherine whose family was as old as his own, and she was young, rich, and a virgin.

She was perfect.

Charles, at his most imperious, had swept her off her feet. Within weeks they were married with the full panoply and the blessing of their Church on their heads.

Once again, devastatingly, Charles had made the mistake of confusing sex with love. His faith was about to be tested as it never had been before.

Bell and Charles had stopped walking and were leaning on a low stone wall. In front of them a forest of fishing smacks, festooned with drying nets, was bobbing on the water. Charles went on talking in a low, husky voice that told Bell how painful these memories were.

His marriage to Catherine had broken down almost before it had begun, in a cruel flood of disappointment and mutual destructiveness. In the confusion of all the terrible things that had happened over those months Charles had almost abandoned his faith. Then, in despair, he had snatched at it again. He had found that it held, and it became the centre of permanence in his life. His belief remained, even though he was left with nothing else. And by a bitter irony that very faith kept him married to a woman he could never live with, and from whom he could never be free.

Charles’s dark gaze travelled over Bell’s intent face and stopped at her mouth. Through the blood rushing in her ears she heard him say, ‘For so long, it’s been all that I have – except for Juliette. It just isn’t possible for me to pretend, to you or to myself, that I’m not married. Even to kiss you, as I did last night, even to think about you as I have, is …’

‘A sin.’ Bell finished the sentence off for him. ‘Charles, I am an outsider. I can only admire the strength of your faith without understanding it. But how, why, is it wrong for us to feel as we do, to want to know each other better, provided that it doesn’t hurt anyone else? Does God want you to go on being alone, denying yourself the … the comforts of a human relationship because of one honest mistake?’

She saw that there was amusement in his face and felt a prickle of irritation.

‘So, I sound naïve. I don’t know the priestly language to dress up what I want to say. But must there be so much difficulty? Why can’t we just … see what happens?’

Charles took her hand in his.

‘You are innocent, Bell, and so free of feminine guile that I could almost forget you are a woman. Don’t run away with the impression that I am a monkish recluse. Nothing would please me more than to take you to bed, now, at once, and I think we would match each other to perfection. But …’ his face darkened, ‘it would be going against my faith, and every principle that I have tried to live by. Up until today.’

Bell nodded, her heart already seizing on the glimmer of hope that he held out in the last three words.

‘Yes, I see that. Charles,’ she said impulsively, not giving herself time to remember that what she was saying ran contrary to all her own considered thoughts, ‘this has happened so quickly, but I know it’s more important than anything that has ever happened to me before. Time doesn’t matter to me. Won’t you just think about what it means? Ask for … spiritual advice?’

His stare was speculative, almost calculating.

‘I can hardly ask you to wait,’ he said coolly, ‘while I tussle with my conscience.’

Bell raised her face to his and kissed him.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You can ask me. I want you to, and you can trust me to wait for as long as it takes. Whatever it costs.’ For an instant Bell listened to her own words in stunned disbelief. No, wait … she wanted to say, as the realization dawned on her that she was giving away her precious, hard-won prize of independence. Then, following the uncertainty, came a wave of absolute conviction. She was coming home, home to the man she wanted. Why should she ever again crave independence? When Bell looked back at Charles there was no trace of doubt in her smile. There was surprise, disbelief and the beginning of a kind of happiness in Charles’s face as he wrapped his arms around her.

The three deckhands in stained blue overalls who were watching from one of the cargo boats whistled and catcalled, but neither Bell nor Charles heard anything.

He drove even faster on the way back to Château Reynard, and with only one hand on the wheel. The other hand held Bell’s, their fingers tightly laced together. Juliette came bounding down the steps to meet them as soon as the car skidded to a stop on the gravel sweep.

‘Lunch? You didn’t say that you were going to vanish for practically a weekend. I’ve asked people for six-thirty and Mama is having the vapours because she thought you wouldn’t be back in time. Not that she wouldn’t be having them anyway, giving a party at a day’s notice.’

Then she looked sharply from one face to another. Her tone changed. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said softly. ‘I see.’

Her broad, freckled face was full of concern, but there was no surprise in it. She took Bell’s arm firmly and led her up the steps.

‘You must change,’ she told her. ‘We only have an hour …’ Once they were inside Bell’s room, Juliette shut the door firmly behind them.

‘Look,’ she said, some of her habitual cheerful confidence having drained away. ‘May I say something?’

‘Of course.’

‘If you and Charles are falling in love, will you try to be careful? Of yourself, of course, but of him too? It won’t be easy for either of you, I am afraid, but Charles has been so much hurt …’

Bell loved her for her concern for him.

‘If I can make him happy,’ she answered, ‘I will.’

‘Yes. I think you will, too. Now, hurry.’

Bell was ready within minutes. She picked up the flamboyant violet and gold jacket and slipped it on. Her eyes were very bright, and there was a warm blush of colour over her cheekbones.

‘You look,’ she told her reflection, ‘like someone who has just fallen in love. What madness, after all the decisions you have just struggled to make. But, ohhhh … how wonderful.’

Bell danced down the stairs towards her birthday party.

She met Marianne crossing the hallway with a loaded tray of champagne glasses.

‘Monsieur le baron?’ asked Bell.

‘In the grande chambre, madame,’ Marianne indicated with a tilt of her head.

‘Thanks. Oh, is there anything I can do to help?’

The little maid looked shocked.

‘But no, madame.’

Bell pushed open another pair of double doors, then gasped. Under a pair of glittering chandeliers was an expanse of brilliantly polished, inviting bare floor. The room ran the whole length of the main wing of the house, and the row of windows reaching from floor to ceiling looked out over the lawns at the back to the circle of trees beyond. Charles was standing alone in the middle of the room, his blond head on one side. He was listening to the music that filled the magnificent room.

His eyes widened when he saw Bell, and then he smiled.

‘Every time I see you again, you look more beautiful.’ He held out his hands.

‘Shall we dance?’

Bell stepped into his arms and he swept her away across the gleaming floor. His dancing was just like his outer self, dominating, assured and accomplished. Bell had always been forced to be the man at dancing classes, and usually she surrendered herself to being led with the greatest difficulty. Yet now she closed her eyes and let everything slip away except his arms, his mouth against her hair, and the music. The sound rippled around them and they moved faster, tracing arabesques over the shining floor. They might have been a single body, Bell thought, as they swept in a wide arc and Charles’s arms pulled her closer and closer. I’m here, now, she told herself. I’m so happy. I don’t want this moment ever to end.

‘Charles? What can you be doing?’ The voice from the doorway was Hélène’s, of course. The dancers sprang guiltily apart and turned to watch her as she glided down the room. The dowager was wearing a stiff little blue satin dress, and her neck and fingers were loaded with diamonds. Hélène’s eyes missed nothing, and she made Bell feel uncomfortably aware of the absence of a bra under her own pale violet shirt.

‘I understand that I am to wish you a happy birthday, Miss er.’

‘That’s right.’ Bell smiled, undeterred.

‘That’s right,’ said Juliette, coming in to join them. ‘And we are going to have a brilliant party to celebrate it.’

Then the doorbell, a real bell that swung at the end of a system of levers, clanged sonorously across the hall.

‘Hooray, people,’ said Juliette, and danced away to open the door.

Soon the guests were pouring in in what seemed like throngs. Bell recognized several wine-trade faces, and spotted the gossip-column good looks of a raffish playboy who owned a nearby estate. Juliette’s friends in jeans and dungarees surged in amongst them, mingling with the dark suits of the wine shippers and the haute couture of their wives.

It was an impressive achievement of Juliette’s, thought Bell, to do all this at less than a day’s notice.

The volume of noise and laughter swelled to fill the grand room, competing with the soft music and the clink of glasses.

Bell stood in the middle of it all, thanking everyone for their birthday good wishes, sipping her champagne, dazed with happiness. She tried to stop her eyes from following Charles around the room by concentrating hard on the talk around her.

‘How enchanting that you are so knowledgeable as well as so decorative,’ said the playboy. His wife, a leggy blonde draped in Missoni, smiled indulgently.

More champagne, and the music throbbing louder.

‘… this vintage. Another month like this, and …’

‘… with three blue blobs in the middle of the canvas. What could I say?’

‘… Bell, I want you to meet my friend Cecilie …’

‘… did you say twenty thousand? …’

‘… absolutely impromptu of course, like everything my daughter does, but rather fun, don’t you think?’

Then two or three couples started to dance, and more and more joined in.

Charles materialized at her side and she slipped gratefully back into his arms as if she belonged there.

Bell began to feel dizzy, with surprise as well as with champagne. She had been so utterly sure that she never wanted to fall in love again.

She had torn herself away from Edward, and dammed up the flood of fear that had threatened to engulf her. Bell nodded, dreamily, her head safely on Charles’s shoulder. She had been right to be afraid. Edward had been the wrong man. Now she had stumbled miraculously, thrillingly – into the arms of the right one.

There were no doubts this time, and no fears. So she could use all her strength, her certainty, to help Charles.

The waltz rippled on and they clung together, oblivious of Hélène’s stare and the smiles of the other dancers.

‘There’s only one thing,’ she whispered to Charles, ‘to spoil it. Having to leave you tomorrow. There’s still so much I want to know about you.’

He answered, fiercely, ‘As soon as the vintage is over, we will be together again. Somehow. I promise.’

Later, on Charles’s arm, Bell found herself in the supper room. There was a group of people sitting at a round table. Afterwards Bell remembered the playboy and his wife, Hélène and Juliette, a red-faced jolly man who was introduced as a Bordeaux négociant, and Jacopin leaning over to fill glasses with yet more champagne.

‘Tell me, Miss Farrer,’ said the jolly man, ‘after you have summed up Château Reynard, where do your travels take you next?’

So Bell, with everyone’s eyes on her, was saying It’s very exciting. I’m going to California, to the Napa Valley. To stay with Valentine Gordon, of Dry Stone Wineries.

After a tiny, horrified gasp from Juliette a frozen silence seemed to radiate outwards from Bell to seize the whole room. It stretched on and on. Bewildered, Bell glanced from face to face and they all seemed to stare straight back with hostile eyes.

Then she turned helplessly to Charles but he wouldn’t even look at her. Instead he stood up stiffly and walked away.

A second later Juliette and the playboy started talking, both at once and too loudly.

Bell couldn’t speak. She pushed her chair back with a clatter, excused herself and began to look wildly around for Charles. He had gone, but another hand caught her arm. It was Juliette.

‘Leave him, Bell.’ She was pulling Bell away, away from the stares and whispers.

‘Come with me. There’s something I have to tell you.’

Bell followed her upstairs with leaden feet. They sat down facing each other in the spoon-backed armchairs. Juliette wrenched the cork out of a cognac bottle and slopped the brandy into two glasses. Her speech was already slurred and she was frowning to keep the room in focus, but she said defiantly, ‘I’ve got to have a drink before I can face talking about it all again.’

Bell sat frozen in her chair, unable to imagine what horrible story she could be about to hear. Dimly, as if from another life, she heard the music stop abruptly as the party came to an end downstairs. She closed her eyes but her head swam sickeningly and she opened them again to see Juliette’s white face.

What had happened?

‘Charles and Catherine had a child,’ she said abruptly, not looking at Bell.

‘A boy, Christophe. He was perfect and we – all of us – adored him.’

Bell waited, her heart thumping, dreading what Juliette was going to say. She was horrified to see that huge tears were pouring down her friend’s face and splashing down on to her fingers clasped around the brandy glass.

‘He died. Just after his second birthday. Oh, Bell, he was so innocent – to have died like that. He was blond, you know, just like us. His head was covered with little flat gold curls like … like wedding rings.’ She was sobbing now, her shoulders heaving. Bell knelt beside her and took her in her arms.

‘Juliette, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she whispered helplessly into the mass of blonde waves. Juliette took a deep breath, blinked, then rubbed at her face with a screwed-up handkerchief.

‘I won’t cry any more. Now I’ve said it. It was meningitis, you see, and he was just too small to fight it.’ She took a huge gulp of her drink and managed to smile into Bell’s worried face.

‘What I’m going to tell you doesn’t reflect well on Charles, but I think it will help you to understand him better. Because of … what is happening between you it’s important that you should know, and he will never tell you himself. So here goes.’

Bell slipped back to her chair and waited.

‘I told you that they were never really happy together, right from the beginning. But they tried hard, to start with, and although there were terrible arguments, there were reconciliations too. A pattern was established. Charles managed to live even more inside his own head – and he’s always been good at that – and Catherine involved herself with the domestic life. She and Mama became very close, and of course the baby was on the way. Then, when he was born, the delight of having a son and heir transformed them both. They took such pleasure in him, it formed a real bond between them. I think, then, I started to believe that it might all work. I wasn’t living here, but I stayed often and they seemed to have come to terms with their differences and to be living amicably side by side. Not together, exactly, but at least in partnership. There were two happy years. Then – so suddenly, he died.

‘Catherine’s grief was terrible, paralysing, but it was immediate. She abandoned herself to it, which was exactly what she should have done. Mama helped her, I did what I could, and her own family too. Her sister’s child, Laure – the child of your sculpture – was born at almost exactly the same time as Christophe and her sister understood better than any of us what she was going through. But there was none of that with Charles.

‘Of course Christophe was his child too, the same loss, but he seemed to draw back from Catherine’s grief as if it disgusted him. And she needed him to help her, to share the sorrow but he wouldn’t – as if he couldn’t – have anything to do with her. For what seemed like months he went on, mechanically doing his work, not speaking, barely eating, recoiling from us all as if we were contagious. I think it was the way that he removed himself during those weeks that killed Catherine’s feeling for him. Slowly, she began to get over Christophe’s death, to be almost her old self again, but I knew that their marriage was over.’

Juliette poured herself another drink but Bell shook her head when she waved the bottle in her direction. It all fitted in. She could imagine how Charles would withdraw, sealing his own misery up inside him and hating the show of it in others.

‘And Charles, all this time, was grieving in his own way?’ she asked gently. Juliette nodded. ‘In his own silent, self-punishing way, yes. I’m sure that there was blame in Charles’s heart, to be doled out as he sat there on his own, brooding. To all of us, probably, but most of all, most bitterly, to himself. And to God, I think, which must have hit him hardest of all. He couldn’t explain to himself why God should have taken such an innocent, blameless little thing, let him die so painfully, unless it was as a punishment. And punishment for who else but he and Catherine? Either there is no God and his son’s death was tragic chance, or it was … divine retribution, I suppose?’

Bell understood. So, by seeing the tragedy of his son’s death as punishment, for whatever sins he and Catherine were guilty of, Charles kept the fact of his faith alive. Yet he lost his wife, and at the same time locked himself in a marriage that denied him the chance of future happiness. With another woman, and another woman’s children, thought Bell bitterly.

Juliette was staring down into her glass, wrapped up in her own memories.

‘So Catherine left him?’ she prompted, with a trace of impatience, not understanding how the sad story had any bearing on the frozen ending of her birthday party three years later.

‘Oh no,’ said Juliette at once. ‘Not then. Something else was happening. You know that Château Larue-Grise once belonged to my mother’s family?’

Bell shook her head, surprised by the abrupt change of subject. Larue-Grise was a once-prestigious property a few kilometres from Reynard. It had been going downhill for fifteen years, but had changed hands a few seasons ago, and now there were excellent reports of it.

‘No,’ she answered, ‘I didn’t. I do know that it’s owned now by an American consortium who are investing large amounts of money, replanting and putting right the neglect … I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound very polite to your mother’s family.’

‘It doesn’t matter. There was no money and – well, the family sold out, as you rightly say, nominally to an American consortium.’

‘Nominally?’

Juliette smiled without any trace of amusement.

‘Oh yes. The real power behind the paper tide is your new friend Valentine Gordon.’ She held up her hand. ‘Don’t protest yet. There’s no doubt that he will be a new friend. He’s very charming. Very attractive. We all liked him, except for Charles who would have nothing to do with him from the very beginning. Too different, you see, too radically opposed on every possible point. Well, Valentine came from California to live at Larue-Grise, supervising the facelift. He was admirably thorough – not only must the vineyards be restocked, the chais kitted out with all the latest technology, but the château itself must be restored to its former glory. Naturally, he came to see Hélène to find out what he could about the old ways. We all became friends – at least, we women did. This was a little while before Christophe died.’

Juliette was looking at Bell now, candid and direct, her forehead wrinkled with the concentration needed to tell her story clearly against the effects of what she had drunk.

‘I liked him especially,’ she said, after a second’s hesitation. ‘He’s very powerful, very good at getting what he wants, but it’s all done with a … recklessness that makes you feel he doesn’t really care about anything. It’s a fatally appealing combination.’

Bell raised her eyebrows, not needing to put the question into words.

‘No,’ responded Juliette, ‘although I would have, with pleasure, if I hadn’t been occupied with someone else during those months.’

Bell was beginning to see.

‘Then there was Christophe’s illness. Afterwards, for a time, Valentine proved himself to be a real friend. He wasn’t part of it, not family, but he was always there when one of us needed to get away from this. I cried in his arms enough times, and Catherine did too.’

Bell’s suspicion became an unpleasant conviction.

‘He seduced her?’

‘Yes. He wanted her, and he saw his chance. He didn’t intend to take her away from Charles. He didn’t want to be responsible for her, or help her recover, or anything noble like that. He just wanted to put her notch on his belt.’ There was a dark red flush of anger over Juliette’s face and neck now, and her fists were clenched.

‘He was a bastard. I watched it happen, and I saw poor Catherine beginning to cling to him. She was getting better, coming back to life, and she needed love more than anything else. Valentine Gordon was hardly the man to give her love, of course, but she didn’t understand that. He was just warm, and full of life, and touchable. Of course she compared him with Charles, always silent, with that terrible, set, disgusted face.’

The rest of the story came out in a rush, as if she couldn’t wait to get it over and done with.

‘Then the inevitable happened. Valentine gave a party, to celebrate the end of the vintage. He always does – did. Catherine wanted to go and – oddly, I thought, although I understood later – so did Charles. There was a great deal of drinking. There always is, when Valentine is around. Then,’ Juliette sighed, and shrugged, ‘Charles saw them together, somewhere. Not in bed, I don’t think, but I suppose doing something that turned his suspicions into certainty. Instead of confronting them there and then, in private, he slipped away and waited until they came back to the party.’

She put her hands over her eyes as she spoke, as if she couldn’t bear to remember the scene.

‘Then, in front of what felt like the entire population of the Médoc, he stood up and accused Valentine of stealing his wife. And challenged him to a duel.’

Bell’s mouth fell open in amazement.

‘A duel?’

‘That was more or less Val’s reaction. In fact I can still hear exactly what he said into the awful silence in the room. It was “Jesus Christ, a fucking duel. This is the twentieth century, Baron. Why don’t you just come over here and smash my face in?” Charles didn’t, of course. I wish he had. Instead he turned around and walked out, leaving Valentine standing there with Catherine like a ghost beside him. Val tried to laugh it all off, rather shakily, but I think he was wishing then that he had taken up the challenge.’

Bell said sharply, ‘Not all that reckless after all,’ and Juliette smiled at her.

‘It’s quite right that your sympathy should be with Charles, but you mustn’t assume that it was cowardly of Val to refuse the pistols at dawn or whatever crazy idea it was that my brother had. He just thought it was irrelevant. Not the way to solve a problem.’

Bell knew that she was right. But the vivid image of Charles waiting to fight in the grey light of some misty-wet meadow excited her, perversely. Suddenly she wanted him very much.

‘Then what?’ she asked Juliette dully.

‘After the party, the next day or the day after, Catherine packed up her things and went away. We saw no more of Valentine, and I heard a little later that he had gone back to California. That’s all, Bell.’

‘And you hate him.’

Juliette smiled at her again, a resigned, crooked smile that surprised Bell.

‘Hate Valentine? No, he’s not the kind of man that you can hate very easily. And what was happening here was nothing to do with him, really. He just treated Catherine as he treats all women. As he will certainly treat you.’ Juliette’s face darkened at the thought. ‘But Charles hates him. Charles is a passionate man, and is capable of passionate extremes. Val Gordon is clever to stay away from him.’

Juliette stood up, swaying a little. ‘Now do you understand tonight?’ Bell nodded dumbly. ‘Then I must go to bed. I’m drunk, and I can’t bear to think any more about Christophe.’

Bell lay down wearily on the white bed and let the held-back tears come. Poor Charles. Poor Charles and poor Catherine. That life should be so cruel. No wonder the pain in his eyes had reminded Bell so sharply of her father. It was the old pain of inconsolable loss, the pain that frightened Bell herself so much.

Oh God, how could she have been naïve enough to think that she could warm that hurt away? She had failed once in her life, and this time all she had had was three pathetic days. And at the end of those she was going away to Valentine Gordon.

It was the cruellest, bitterest coincidence. No wonder. Oh, no wonder.

At last Bell fell asleep with the jaunty striped blazer all wrinkled up underneath her and the ivory bangle digging a red weal into her wrist.

She was woken up by the sun pouring cruelly in through the undrawn curtains and the sound of someone tapping at her door. It was Marianne, with a breakfast tray. She stopped dead when she saw Bell, her eyes and mouth wide open with surprise.

‘I must have dropped off,’ Bell said feebly, trying to raise a smile.

‘Oui, Madame. Monsieur le baron, he asked me to say that there is not much time. The airport …’

‘I know. Thank you.’

The coffee was hot and mercifully strong. Bell gulped it down as she packed her bag. A hot shower helped her headache, and clean clothes made her feel almost human again. But her face was dead white, with all yesterday’s pink, happy glow gone.

At last there was another knock at the door.

‘Charles …’ He was standing there, looking as distant as when he had first greeted her on the Château steps. ‘Charles, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, about it all. About everything.’ She buried her face against his chest, and then felt the blissful relief of his arms going round her.

‘Valentine Gordon is a dangerous man,’ he said stiffly, and she felt a little clutch of apprehensiveness at the weeks that lay ahead. How could she go out there, alone?

‘I won’t go, I won’t go,’ she told him in desperation. Stobbs didn’t matter. Her job didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Charles.