Celebration

‘Hello, Bell,’ she said at last, shaking her hand hard.

‘Ça va, Jacopin?’ She patted his shoulder and he grinned with delight.

‘Mees Farraire took your place at déjeuner today,’ he told her, ‘and we gave her a real taste of Reynard, I can tell you.’ Juliette chuckled as she watched him heading back towards the chais.

‘Baptism by fire? Well done. You don’t belong at Reynard until they’ve taken you to their hearts in the kitchen.’

‘I don’t think I understood more than half of it, but the other half I did enjoy.’

Juliette nodded vigorously so that the tight blonde waves bounced over her shoulders. ‘Shall we go inside?’

She took Bell’s arm and steered her firmly towards the steps. Bell let herself be propelled along, fascinated and amused by the difference between this lively, friendly girl and her reserved brother.

There seemed to be nothing of Hélène in Juliette, either. Bell noticed that the sleeve of the girl’s grey sweater was matted with little blobs of what looked like plaster, her fingernails were short and blunt, and her freckled profile was bare of make-up.

No wonder the two women didn’t get on.

Juliette crackled with good humour and directness. Bell didn’t make new friends very quickly, but she warmed to Charles’s sister immediately and without any reservations.

When they reached Bell’s room, Juliette swung her legs up on to the white bedcover, obviously settling down with relish for a long talk.

‘Tell me what you’ve been doing here since yesterday? I’m sorry I wasn’t around last night. Missed a really jolly time, I hear.’

Bell stopped short, remembering with a kind of happiness that surprised her.

‘Charles and I – sat up and had a long, long talk.’ She smiled suddenly at Juliette. ‘I haven’t done that for ages, not since university, practically, after just meeting somebody. We were both upset,’ she finished, candidly.

‘Yes. Charles told me about him and Mama having a scene. It must have been horrible for you.’

‘Not nearly as horrible as it was for them.’

Juliette groaned and ran her hands wildly through her hair.

‘What can I do? They love each other, but Mama goads Charles until he can’t control himself any longer. Then pouf! Explosion.’

Bell sat down in front of the dim mirror and began to put her hair up. She needed something to do with her hands, and even more she needed somewhere to look that wasn’t into Juliette’s eyes. They were searching Bell’s face with unnerving thoroughness, and they seemed to see something that Bell herself wasn’t even properly aware of yet.

‘Has it been like this for very long?’ she asked.

‘Since Catherine went away.’

Juliette’s openness touched Bell. The other girl began to talk about her mother with affection and exasperation in her voice.

‘She’s very lonely. And getting older. And as she gets older her dynastic instincts get stronger. She loved my father very much, threw everything in with him here although her own family lived quite close. At a rival Château, in fact. Then Papa died, but Charles was just married and she thought that there would be children. Lots of them, the family going on, you know. The Château, the business, tradition. Everything she and Papa had cared about.’

Bell listened, imagining the older woman’s fading dreams and feeling her first dislike tinged with sympathy. Reflected in the mirror she could see that all the merriment had drained out of Juliette’s face, leaving it pale and, without her smile, quite plain.

‘Catherine was perfect in her eyes. Aristocratic, of course …’ the corners of her mouth turned down in a wry grimace, ‘… very correct, and clever too, in a domestic way. Charles met her and married her almost at once. I know him better than anyone,’ Bell heard the note of pride in her voice and guessed that she must love her brother very dearly, ‘and I thought from the beginning that it was a mistake. Charles is cool, but only on the surface. Underneath he is fiery and he needs someone tough and straight, and as hot-blooded as he is. Catherine is outwardly pliant, which is wrong for Charles, but inside she has a little, steely core. And that’s wrong for him too. He’s very traditional, you see. Has to be, au fond, le maître.’ Bell nodded, understanding as she recalled the defiant tilt of the chin in Catherine’s photograph.

‘Then why did they marry?’ she asked.

‘Oh, they were in love, no doubt about that. But as soon as they were married, the discoveries started. I don’t think things ever went right. In bed, even,’ she added very softly. ‘Terrible rows began. Really agonizing rows. Hélène bore it very discreetly, but I couldn’t stand it. Went to live in Bordeaux.’ Suddenly Juliette bent her head so that her face was screened by the mass of hair. One hand picked at a thread in the white cotton coverlet.

‘Then. Then something … tragic happened, and instead of it bringing them together it drove them even further apart. They were making each other so unhappy. At last Catherine just went away. Packed a few clothes into her little Renault and just vanished.’ Juliette paused for a moment, her eyes looking out at the sweep of gravel driveway. ‘It was courageous of her, don’t you think? Since then Charles’s life has been pretty empty, but at least not as painful as before. I came back here to keep him company. He needs it.’

There was a long silence before Bell spoke again.

‘What will happen now?’

Juliette shrugged and pulled again at the loose thread.

‘Nothing. Things will go on just as they are.’

Bell felt a small, unpleasant shock as the words sank in, then wondered half-consciously why.

Divorce is not a possibility, Charles’s voice came back to her.

‘Can’t they divorce?’ she asked Juliette, knowing the answer.

The other girl looked at her, unsurprised, before she answered.

‘No, Bell. Charles is a religious man. It’s part of him, unchangeable. Catherine is his wife, and always will be his wife before God. They can’t live together, but they can’t be freed from each other. Ever.’

Bell closed her eyes for a second. She saw Hélène’s face and the bitter lines etched around her mouth. How painful it must be for her, sitting here in her empty château, alienated from her children and denied the chance to see her grandchildren growing up to inherit it all.

Bell put down her hairbrush and turned to face Juliette.

‘I’m just going to change …’

The other girl, sensitive, saw at once that she wanted to be left alone. She got up quickly and then turned back in the doorway.

‘Don’t worry too much about changing. Mama always stays in her rooms the day after a scene. You know,’ she added, ‘your hair suits you like that. Shows off the lines of your cheeks and neck. Beautifully modelled.’ Bell waved her away and she went, calling back from down the corridor, ‘I am a sculptor, you know. These things are not lost on me.’

Bell was frowning as she took off her jeans and stepped carefully into a soft crêpe de chine dress patterned with tiny wildflowers.

Something awkward and unexpected had happened, and she had to force herself to face up to it.

Charles de Gillesmont had stopped being just someone she had to interview for the paper. He was a man, and he attracted her. More, she knew intuitively that he was drawn to her too.

But that must be all. Nothing else could happen. Nothing should happen. It was sad, but that was the only sensible answer. Charles was irrevocably married. He had told her that himself, and so had his sister. And he lived in a world totally apart from her own.

What’s more, what about her own determination to make her way alone? Charles de Gillesmont was altogether too powerful to fit into the category of lighthearted love-affairs along life’s wayside.

Bell went over to the window to look out at the rich acres of Charles’s vineyards. She rested her forehead against the cool glass and laughed at herself. English Cinderella falls head over heels into life in an exotic French château and succumbs within minutes to the mysterious baron.

No, not quite like that. Worryingly, it went much deeper.

Bell’s smile faded.