“I am trying, but—” She broke off, shook her head. “I worry . . . I worry so much. What if he has an investigator looking?”
“Did Olivier have a lot of money? Spare cash?”
“Non,” she said swiftly, shaking her head emphatically. “He had no spare money. Only the money he earned as a flic.”
“Believe me, there’s no investigator looking for you. Olivier can’t afford one. And please, trust me, trust my judgment.”
“Oui, oui, I do, Val.”
V
As I wandered with Françoise through the roofless chambers of the once-glorious Middleham Castle, I stared up at its shattered battlements and wondered about those who had lived here long ago. The great magnate Richard Neville, his wife, his daughters, and the young princes of the blood. And I thought of the splendor of old that was gone, lost forever in the dust of time passing. Weeds and tufts of grass pushed up through the broken walls, and birds built their nests in ancient crevices and sheltered corners of the massive ruins.
Centuries ago, great nobles and their ladies, dressed in rich and elegant clothes, had walked amid these splendorous halls, where banquets and sumptuous entertainments had been held. And here had lived the most powerful in the land . . . here they had worked and played and plotted together. Made love, given birth, quarreled, fought, and made up. And died.
How hard to imagine as I glanced about me. Frost covered the hardened winter ground, bits of gray stone lay all around me, remnants of those walls that had crumbled long ago. It was a stronghold no more, had not been for eons.
Dead, all of them, and buried. Their lives forgotten by most. And what had their lives been all about in the long run? And why did those lives matter now? They didn’t, did they? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . . one day Françoise would be dust, and so would I, and why did her life and mine matter? One day we would be gone and nobody would care. Yet while we lived we fought so hard to have what we thought we should have . . . what mattered to us . . . what we conceived as being ours. . . .
What had they been like, all those who had inhabited this place? So many ghosts here, flitting through the ruined chambers . . .
“Val, Val, is something wrong?”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to her. “No, I’m fine. Why?”
She said quietly, “Are you weeping? There are tears on your face.”
I touched my cheeks with my fingers and realized they were wet. She was right, and I was surprised. I shook my head. “I was thinking about the people who had once lived here. All of them dead these hundreds of years, and I was contemplating their lives. All that they suffered, enjoyed, lost and regretted, longed for and attained. And all the things they never had. Lives lived, then snuffed out. Just like that. Gone in a flash. We are here for such a short time. And then we are dead and nobody cares . . . why does any of it matter? Why do we bother? Why do we struggle?”
She stared at me thoughtfully, and then after a moment she answered slowly, “I think . . . because we are human.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And perhaps we always see . . . hope. Hope for ourselves and our lives. Hope for something better.”
Chapter 29
I
The night had turned icy cold and it had begun to snow. I stood at the living room window, looking out at the moors, watching the flakes float down, delicate and crystalline in the moonlight. The high-flung sky was like the inside of a bowl turned upside down, jet black, hung with bright stars and a clear silver orb of a full moon.
Fiona had built up the fire and turned on the central heating, and now, as she hurried in with the coffee on a tray, she exclaimed, “Thank God we had the foresight to put in a heating system. These old houses are impregnable, built like fortresses, but they can be cold. On a night like this the extra heat is very welcome. Come, Val, have a cup of coffee and let’s settle down for our chat.”
“It was a lovely dinner, Fiona, thank you,” I said as I walked across to join her near the fireplace.
“You’re welcome, but it was only cottage pie.” She laughed and poured our coffee.
I sat down on one sofa and she took a seat on the other, so that we were facing each other. It was warm and cozy in the room, with the fire hissing and crackling in the hearth, and the lights turned low. The soft mood was conducive to intimacy and sharing, not that we were shy with each other after our conversations about Tony in New York in October.
“You don’t know anything much about my life,” I began, looking across at her. “So let me tell you about those years before I came to live in Paris.”
She nodded. “That’s a good idea, I’d like a bit of background, Val. I’ll be able to understand things much better.”
And so trying to be as succinct as possible, endeavoring to avoid embellishments, I told her the story of my childhood growing up in New York. I gave her enough details for her to fully understand how I had been brought up, and told her about those people who had been part of my life: my mother and father, Annie Patterson, Donald, and my grandparents.
When I had finally finished, I sat back, gazing at her intently, waiting for her to say something.
Fiona looked ineffably sorrowful, and her eyes were moist. After a long silence, she said in a low voice, “How tragic, what a sad childhood you had, Val. And how dreadfully sad for your mother, she missed so much, missed all the joy of you, of your early years, when you were a little girl, and then those wonderful teen years.” She shook her head. “And how terribly hard for you, heartbreaking really. How you must have suffered.”
I exclaimed, “It’s a wonder I’m as sane as I am, when you think about it, Fiona! I know my troubled past has done all sorts of things to me, but somehow I’ve managed to cope and lead a relatively sane life, although I also accept that I am damaged in certain ways . . . psychologically damaged.”
“I suppose that’s true, but you did have that lovely Scottish nanny. And your grandparents were wonderful to you, and of course you had a little brother to love until your mother stepped in, broke the two of you up, so to speak. ’Tis a shame she did that.”
“Yes, it is, and I foolishly blamed Donald for it when it wasn’t his fault. And I realize now that I must have been very jealous of him in those days. After all, she was forever favoring him. It was like a knife in my side, although Annie did try to assuage my hurt, dry my tears, make me feel wanted.”
“You’re lucky to have had her, you know. Those early months and years are so important in a child’s development. The child must know it’s loved, feel that love, have that nurturing, that cuddling and caring. Thankfully Annie gave it to you, was there for you, to love you, make you feel safe.”
“Yes. And yet I do still crave nurturing, you know. . . .” My voice trailed off, I didn’t want to mention Tony or Jake at this point in my story.
I told Fiona everything. I told her about my mother’s love affair with Vincent Landau, about her illegitimate daughter, Anjelica, the child whom she gave away, about Vincent’s suicide a week before the day he was to wed the society heiress Marguerite Shiff. Finally I finished: “My mother said she couldn’t love me because of her guilt about Anjelica, about giving her away.”
Fiona sat there, staring at me, her shock and disbelief written all over her face. Eventually she roused herself, shook her head from side to side, and exclaimed, “I’m appalled! Absolutely appalled. What that woman did to you is unconscionable . . . that she could treat her own daughter in such a cruel way, it’s just beyond understanding, beyond belief. She has to be bonkers, off the wall.”
“Yes, I think she was, is, more than likely mentally ill, disturbed. In New York that day, I told her she was wicked and added she was beyond wicked, that she was evil. And in a way I think she is evil . . . but there’s also something else, something very odd about her. She’s so very beautiful, Fiona, movie-star beautiful, but, oh, God, is she cold. Icy cold. My grandfather called her the Ice Queen.” I let out a long sigh. “When I asked her why my father had followed h
er lead and behaved toward me in exactly the same way she had, she told me he didn’t want children, that he abhorred them. She said he was jealous of me, and of Donald as well, because he didn’t want to share her. We were a nuisance, totally unwanted as far as he was concerned, so she said anyway. I guess we were in the way. But he was a wimp, and she walked all over him.” I paused and looked into the fire for a second or two, and then I said to Fiona with a small frown, “Yet she was able to love Donald, you know. She took him away from me when I was eleven and he was six . . .” I left my sentence unfinished, stared at her helplessly.
“Because he was probably rather cute by then, and he was perhaps a useful accessory for a woman like her, and then again, she knew it would hurt you if she split you up.”
“But why would she want to hurt me?”
“I just don’t know, Val. I think it would take a psychiatrist years to get to the bottom of your mother’s troubled psyche, to find out what motivated her, what made her tick. And what makes her tick today. I will say this though, among other things, I think she’s probably rather stupid.”
I frowned on hearing this. “But she’s not, she’s become a very good businesswoman, something of a tycoon, in fact.”
Fiona raised an auburn brow and exclaimed, “Really!”
I told Fiona about Lowell’s, how it had been started in 1898 by Amy-Anne, and about her rule, commonly known in the family as The Tradition. “So you see, she has to leave it to me. There’s no legal document apparently, but that’s the family rule. The company’s now worth millions, and its value will only increase next year if Lowell’s makes a public offering. But I don’t want it. I refused my inheritance. I told her to leave it to Donald.”
Fiona looked startled momentarily, and then she broke into delighted laughter. “Good for you, Val! But you wouldn’t do anything else but that. You have far too much integrity. Anyway, getting back to my remark about your mother being stupid, I really do think she might have been both stupid and a little weak when she was a younger woman. And that has nothing to do with being clever in business.”
“Stupid and weak in what sense?”
“Look, she had an illegitimate child, and her mother had allowed her to keep the baby for months. Why not simply adopt the title of Mrs. and pretend to be a young widow? Your mother wasn’t well known, so who would know the difference? She behaved in a very stupid way, and she was weak in her handling of her mother, your grandmother Violet Scott. They could have worked something out between them. Then there’s Vincent Landau, what kind of jackass was he? He was just as stupid and weak as your mother, in my opinion. He should have either defied his parents and married her, if he loved Margot so much, and to hell with the consequences. Or he should have married his society fiancée and kept your mother on the side as his mistress, and supported her and Anjelica. Or, if she didn’t want that, he could have simply provided for them financially. And why did he commit suicide? None of it really makes sense. I don’t understand . . . like you, I’m baffled, Val.”
“I’ve wondered lately . . . if it’s all a bunch of lies.”
“But why would she lie to you?” Fiona looked at me alertly, her eyes widening.
“I suppose she felt she had to try to explain to me why she couldn’t love me, and maybe she thought it would be a much more sympathetic story . . . an innocent young woman forced to give up her illegitimate child, et cetera, et cetera, and becoming guilt ridden thereafter.”
“You could have a point, but no, I don’t think she lied. There’s something about the story that has the ring of truth. But you know, Val me darlin’, you shouldn’t be trying to fathom out your mother, her mental state, her personality disorder, and what was at the root of her behavior toward you when you were a child. It’s basically of no consequence, because knowing why she did what she did won’t change anything. That’s all water under the bridge now. And anyway, knowing won’t help you, now, will it?”
“No, I don’t suppose it will,” I replied.
“You must forget all about your mother and worry about yourself, Val darlin’. Get yourself truly well inside, so that you can move forward the way Jake said you should.”
“But how . . . I don’t know how to do that, Fiona,” I said.
“By forgiving your mother. You must have the courage and strength to do that, to empty your heart of your hatred for her, your condemnation of her. It will be your forgiveness of her that will set you free.”
I didn’t speak. I merely gazed at Fiona, digesting her words, trying to heed her wisdom.
Rising, she came over, sat next to me on the sofa; she put her arms around me, held me close, as a mother holds a child in distress. “She did terrible things to you in your childhood, Val, but you must let them go . . . they’re simply not worth holding on to. They’re of no value now.”
Unexpectedly, I began to cry, the tears spurting out of my eyes and falling down my cheeks unchecked. I hadn’t known I was going to become so emotional, and I tried hard to take hold of my swimming senses. But I didn’t do very well, and soon I was sobbing uncontrollably, as though my heart would break.
But slowly the weeping did eventually subside under Fiona’s calming influence. Finally I extricated myself from her arms and sat back. I offered her a weak smile. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know the floodgates were going to open like that.”
“I know you didn’t, but perhaps it’s just as well they did. There’s nothing like a good cry to make you feel better.”
I nodded and groped for a tissue in the pocket of my jacket.
She said, “It’s not going to be easy, because you’ve struggled with the problem of your mother’s behavior toward you for your entire life, but now it is time to expunge it. And always remember this, Val, forgiveness, like the truth, does set you free. Trust me on that.”
II
The moors were covered with a giant quilt of white by the following day. Jake and Mike, along with Mike’s two daughters, Lisa and Joy, arrived at Ure House in time for tea on Thursday. It was Christmas Eve, and there was already a festive feeling in the air. Fiona and Françoise had decorated most of the downstairs rooms with holly, and a large sprig of mistletoe dangled from the brass chandelier in the entrance hall.
The tree stood there at the back of the hall, tall and stately, a dark green fir that awaited its Yuletide decorations. The dressing of the tree was planned for later that evening, and I told Jake about Fiona’s plans as the two of us went upstairs to our bedroom.
The moment Jake walked into our room he exclaimed with pleasure, “This is great, Val! And just look at that bed! I’ve never seen one so inviting.”
I laughed and agreed with him. The four-poster dominated the room, was piled high with fresh white linen pillows and a plump duvet in an antique linen cover. “It’s very cozy,” I pointed out, “I’ve been sleeping in it for the last couple of nights. And isn’t it great to have a fire in the bedroom?”
He nodded, walked across the room, and looked out the mullioned windows that offered a panoramic view of the windswept, snow-covered moors. He shivered slightly. “I bet it’s kind of cold up there.”
“But beautiful, Jake. You’re going to love this place, and it’s so full of history. David’s been filling me in. It’s fascinating.”
“So he told you about the Kingmaker, did he?” Jake asked, joining me by the fire, putting an arm around my shoulders.
I frowned. “I’m not sure who you mean? He did tell me about the Earl of Warwick—”
“That’s him,” Jake said, interrupting me. “He’s one of my favorite characters in British history. Quite a guy, he was.” Jake tightened his grip on me and added, “I’m glad we’re here, Val, and Fiona’s wonderful, the way she’s planned this old-fashioned family Christmas for all of us.”
“She’s been very loving to me, Jake,” I confided, and then I told him about our heart-to-heart talk of the night before.
Jake listened carefully, as he always did, forever
attentive and concerned about my problems. When I’d finished, he asked, “And do you think you can forgive your mother, Val?”
“Yes, I do. Because there is nothing else to do. Anyway, I believe that everything Fiona said is true. If I can see it in my heart to forgive my mother, then I myself can go forward into the future, putting the past behind me.”
III
Christmas Eve at Ure House was only a foretaste of what was to come for the next few days—a typical Yorkshire Christmas.
Fiona and David gathered us all in the big living room later that evening and served eggnog, chilled white wine, and champagne, along with hot sausage rolls and bite-sized cheese tartlets. After our first drink, we all trooped out into the entrance hall and started to dress the tree.
“Everything’s silver and gold,” Fiona explained, showing us the stacks of boxes in one corner, “so no one can make a mistake. Just hang something and anywhere you want.”
There was a lot of banter and laughter and everyone enjoyed the traditional activity of hanging the ornaments. And as she said, it was impossible to make an error.
The smells emanating from the kitchen were delicious, and at one moment I breathed in the aroma of chestnut stuffing and goose roasting in the oven, and my mouth began to water. A bit later Noel appeared. David’s son was a younger, taller version of his father, and he came out dressed in his white chef’s uniform and toque. Waving his wooden spoon, he announced, “Your goose is cooked! Well, almost.”
“My goose was cooked the moment I met Fiona,” David quipped, and we all laughed.
“Back to the kitchen to finish up,” Noel said, and disappeared, but not before he’d admonished us to hurry up with the dressing of the Christmas tree.