Celebration

Bell went scarlet. She was stung by his tone into a quick retort.

‘Of course I’m a wine writer. I’m a good one because I know what people want to read. In this case, that means you, not just the wine. I have to do my job as well as I can, otherwise I’ll find myself without it. And what you’ve given me there,’ she pointed at the cassette in the recorder, ‘doesn’t exactly sizzle.’ She looked up at him, ready to go on defending herself, but she was amazed to see that he was laughing.

It transformed his face, rubbing out the severe lines and making him look almost boyish.

He’s got a very sensuous mouth, Bell thought irrelevantly, feeling a tiny constriction in her throat.

‘Must it sizzle?’ Charles was asking her.

‘Yes,’ she said, defiantly.

He bent forward to the low table and pressed the ‘off’ button on the machine.

‘You care about it, this job, don’t you?’ He was looking at her differently. As if she was a person and not a prying journalist.

‘Yes,’ she answered, and then, to her surprise, ‘it’s all I’ve got to care about, now.’

Why on earth had she said that, to a frosty, upper-class stranger? Something about him had caught her unawares. His stare was serious now, with a distinct edge of sympathy. He glanced at the recorder as if to make sure that it was really switched off, then said softly, ‘We have that in common, then.’

He stood up and rummaged in a cupboard, then produced a pair of champagne flutes. As he put them on the table he added, ‘My wife and I are separated.’ It would have sounded like a casual afterthought if Bell hadn’t seen the pain and bitterness in his face. The disdainful self-assurance had gone. For that brief instant, he was just an unhappy man. ‘Excuse me.’ He walked out of the room, but Bell barely had time to gather her thoughts after the bewildering change in his manner before he was back, carrying a bottle. It was Krug, connoisseur’s champagne, 1964.

He opened the bottle deftly and let the wine foam into the thin glasses. He handed one to Bell and then raised his own.

‘To you, Bell. And to the success of your assignment.’

They drank, and for the moment Bell forgot everything but the reviving fizz of the wonderful wine in her mouth. When she looked back at him Charles was watching her with clear approval in his face.

‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning for his good wishes as well as the champagne. He made a tiny, mock-formal bow and leant back against the mantelpiece. The room was very quiet, and warm with the early evening sunlight.

‘Yes,’ Charles said almost to himself. ‘My wife and I are separated. Divorce is not a possibility, so …’

Bell frowned and then remembered. Of course, the aristocratic de Gillesmonts would be devout Catholics.

‘… you see, I can’t predict for you or for your readers what will happen here in the future. That will depend on who takes over after I am gone. Whoever it is, it will not now be a child of mine.’ Charles had gone very pale, and his voice was so low that Bell had to strain to catch the words. She didn’t know what to say, and after a moment he collected himself and went on.

‘All I can tell you is that so long as I am breathing, it will stay exactly as it always has been. In that, at least, there is some permanence. Not very fashionable, I know, when everyone else is rushing headlong to get rid of the old ways. You are welcome to write that about me, if you think anyone would be interested. More champagne?’ A little of the suave gloss was beginning to creep back. Bell held out her glass as she answered.

‘I’m sorry, I had no intention of prying. Put it down to vulgar journalistic curiosity.’

He was watching her speculatively. ‘I don’t think, somehow, that vulgarity is one of your faults. I was watching your face when we had our disagreement a moment ago. It upset you. That sort of sensitivity can’t be a very helpful trait, for a journalist.’

‘This is all wrong.’ Bell tried to laugh, casually. ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing you.’

‘Well, perhaps it would be more amusing to turn the tables. I could try my hand at a profile of you, and risk a few personal questions. Let me see … perhaps you are suffering from a newly broken heart?’

Bell looked into his dark blue eyes with a jolt of surprise. This was ridiculous.

She felt uncomfortable under his stare, but at the same time there was something about him that made her want to go on talking to him. It was as if he was familiar in some way that she couldn’t quite identify.

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Not a broken heart, exactly. More a sad, wasteful mess that I’m ashamed of. He – somebody else – got more hurt than me. I wish it had been the other way round.’

‘Yes,’ he said drily. ‘One always does. So, what now?’

‘Oh, becoming the greatest wine writer in the world.’

‘Of course. Impossible for me to stand in the way of that. We shall have to cook up something between us that will satisfy your editor.’

Charles glanced down at his watch and frowned.

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to sit here with you like this all evening.’

That was conventional French politesse, but Bell caught herself hoping that there was a whisper of truth in it.

‘But I think I should take you to meet my mother. She will be waiting for us. She always sits in the salon before dinner.’

Charles drained his champagne glass and picked up the half-empty bottle. Bell stood up too, and then glanced down at her bare, suntanned legs.

‘Perhaps I should change?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. There will be just the three of us. My sister Juliette is away until tomorrow.’

He was holding the door open, looking a little impatient. Bell followed him obediently.

Across the hallway a pair of panelled doors opened into a long, graceful drawing-room.

It struck Bell as exquisitely French and at the same time very feminine. The spindly chairs and chaises longues were gilt and upholstered in faded, rose-coloured silks. Panelled walls were painted the palest duck-egg blue and hung with gilt-framed landscapes and clusters of miniatures.

Charles’s mother was sitting to one side of a creamy marble fireplace, leaning over an embroidery frame. As they came in her eyes went straight to the champagne bottle in Charles’s hand.

‘Charles,’ she said in a high, clear patrician voice, ‘couldn’t you have found a tray and a napkin?’ Bell thought that he stiffened as he set the bottle carefully down on an inlaid table.

‘Mama,’ he said, ‘this is Bell Farrer. Bell, my mother – Hélène de Gillesmont.’ Mother and son were very alike, except that the baroness’s face was more deeply etched with lines of pride and hauteur.

Her cold eyes travelled over Bell’s plain blue linen shirt and very slightly creased skirt, and the pale eyebrows arched upwards a fraction. Bell’s hostess was wearing a pale grey silk dinner dress with couture written all over it and a triple rope of pearls.

She held out a reluctant hand. There was a huge emerald in the ring on her third finger.

‘How do you do, Miss er … Won’t you sit down, and my son will pour you another drink?’ She spoke English, perfectly, sounding like the Queen.

Bell perched on the nearest fragile little chair and sighed inwardly. Black mark to the grubby English journalist. She guessed that she was going to have to work very hard indeed to keep her end up this evening. Perhaps it would help if she showed off her own almost equally perfect French.

‘What a beautiful room this is. It feels so restful.’

Back came the reply, still in English.

‘Yes. My daughter-in-law and I planned it together.’ It was a deliberate snub, and Bell felt a flash of irritation. She looked at Charles but his face was turned away from both of them as he stared out of the window.

It was going to be a difficult evening.