A Dark and Distant Shore (66 page)

‘Oh, no! But what a delightful surprise it will be for her. She will be as confounded as I was when your letter arrived.’

It was five days before Shona could bear to let him go, by which time he knew everything he could ever have wanted to know about Marchfield, and Drew, and Glenbraddan, and the foundry, and a wide range of friends, connections, and acquaintances, including several he had never heard of, and several he remembered well. Including Magnus Telfer, who had not reopened Kinveil, but was now greatly recovered from the shock of his wife’s death and living most of the time in London, a sociable and eligible widower. Although Vilia didn’t go out much when she was at home, when she was in town Magnus often escorted her to parties and balls.

Vilia, who had little time to spare for milliners and mantua-makers, and a natural disinclination to follow any dictates but her own – even the dictates of fashion – had always pleased herself in the matter of what she wore. Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could vast bonnets, ballooning sleeves, and skirts as wide and weighty as a steeple bell have been said to suit her everyday life, jogging back and forth to the foundry, shuttling in and out of carriages, and sometimes – more often than she would have wished – in and out of warehouses, engine rooms, and furnace sheds. She had become used to slender clothes and, by the exercise of a little malicious ingenuity, had been so successful in giving them a picturesque, subtly mediaeval look, that most of her acquaintances had come to believe that she was not careless of fashion, but contemptuous of it. No one could possibly have called her a dowdy. Indeed, more than one lady of mode, burdened by a dozen yards of printed satin, by petticoats and stays and bustles and sleeve-wadding, had thought wistfully that she would have liked to follow Mrs Lauriston’s lead, if only she had the courage.

But in Paris even Vilia’s courage had failed her. Graciously summoned with M. and Mme Savarin to a court ball at the Tuileries, she had hesitated, and listened to Georgiana, and been lost. She didn’t know enough about France to know whether particularity of dress might not be taken for
lèse-majesté,
even if the
majesté
in question was the commonplace Louis-Philippe, the Citizen King, of whom she had no opinion at all. On the whole, however, she thought as she threw a last look at herself in the glass, the result was not as dreadful as she had feared. She had said a firm no to flowered damask, and an even firmer no to maroon brocade over rose-coloured satin, and settled for blonde lace over blonde satin. The wide, low neckline displayed her shoulders to advantage, and the cross-draped bodice was flattering even if the ‘Imbecile’ sleeves were fuller than she would have liked. She was not altogether sure that she was going to be able to manage the ample skirt, looped up on one side to display the underdress, and fastened with a veritable chandelier of pearl and crystal drops. There were pearl and crystal earrings to match, but her throat was bare. Ruefully, she thought that she would have been bowed under the weight of it all if the boning hadn’t held her in place.

She forgot her discomfort when they arrived at the Tuileries, overcome by an almost childish excitement at the sheer gorgeousness of the scene. Though the Citizen King might be every bit as dull and bourgeois as bluff old Sailor Billy across the Channel, there was nothing mean or penny-pinching here. For a nostalgic moment, she remembered the Peers’ ball in Edinburgh during George IV’s visit in 1822. That had been quite different, noisy and colourful and not altogether civilized, but there had been the same exhilarating feeling of being at the centre of things. She had come to France because she had an imperative need to escape for a time from a situation in which she was reminded, day after day, of all the things it was important that she should learn to forget, or at least ignore. Here, she had thought, in the decent anonymity of a country where she knew almost no one, she might be able to come to terms with it all. And now, looking round the Tuileries, for a few moments she was able to forget the foundry, and Marchfield House, and Edinburgh, where taste and culture, as in Paris, were little more than a veil drawn over the coarsest squalor. She forgot even London and its tedious respectability, and the way Magnus Telfer was coming more and more to rely on her advice and judgement.

The whole length of the palace was glittering with lights and diamonds and feathers and uniforms, all the connecting chambers thrown open to give a perspective that dazzled the eyes and the senses. The walls and ceilings had been newly gilded and painted, the servants were arrayed in magnificent liveries, and medals gleamed profusely on the chests of a good many of the male guests. Vilia knew that some who should have been there were missing; victims of the infernal machine with which an assassin had tried to kill the king a month ago. But Louis-Philippe and his queen moved freely enough among the three thousand guests, gracious and civil – too civil, perhaps – exchanging a word here with a duke or princess, there with a national guardsman or a private soldier. Democracy at work, Vilia thought, amused. The guests came from all strata of society, although every woman there seemed to be decked out with a ransom in jewellery. Could there be so many diamonds in the world? The men were easier to place. There were uniforms of course, and a few frock coats, but the majority wore formal tailcoats, cut across at the waist and fastened low to display exotic waistcoats and exquisite shirts. Vilia giggled to herself. By their nether garments shall ye know them, she thought. Some, as if declaring that they would have no truck with royalist display, wore trousers, as they would have done to any evening event, but others were turned out in the knee breeches, silk stockings, and pumps that court etiquette preferred. How much handsomer they looked, Vilia thought, when they had the figure for it.

There was dancing in several rooms, and the most extravagant supper Vilia had ever seen set out on tables in the theatre. Every dish was a work of art as well as of culinary genius. It seemed a pity that whalebone prevented most of the ladies from savouring more than a mouthful of
homard à la crème
or
caille à la vigneronne,
but at least the sorbets were refreshing in the oppressive heat of candles, people, and one’s own gripping, stifling, abominable gown, in which one couldn’t even sit down with any comfort.

To escort Vilia, the Savarins had roped in the Comte de Marcabrun, a good-looking young man in his mid-twenties with a fulsome line in compliments and some pretensions to wit. He had literary ambitions, too, and during a pause in the dancing took the opportunity – which he had clearly been hoping for all evening – to regale herself and Emile with the story of his recent luncheon with the distinguished but absent-minded M. de Balzac.

‘Not until I arrived did he warn me that he lunched like a monk, and there was I hungry as a wolf! Will you believe me? Three raisins and two penny rolls, and a glass of Rhine wine with which we drank a toast to “God, the foremost novelist of the world”. I swear to you, on my honour!’

The orchestra struck up a waltz and Vilia, still smiling, became aware that someone was standing behind her; some gentleman, no doubt, who hoped she might honour him with this dance. She could see from Savarin’s face that it was no one he knew, and turned, gracious rejection already on her lips.

She didn’t feel anything at all. The music and the lights and the dancers vanished, leaving her insensate as a marble statue staring at another marble statue. After the initial shock, her eyes, disbelieving, passed a tentative message to her mind, and her mind said, it’s impossible. It can’t be.

It was thirteen years since she had sent him away, someone she didn’t really know, with harsh lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, and a tension in his manner that suggested struggle unrelieved by success. Since then, for very cogent reasons of her own, she had persuaded herself that by now he would be lined and middle-aged, his muscles slack, his hair receding, his manners coarsened by thirteen more years of effortful failure. Her mind said again that it couldn’t be Perry Randall, but it was.

Impeccably groomed, faultlessly arrayed in black coat, white waistcoat, and knee breeches, he bowed and said with a trace of mockery, ‘Perhaps you will give me the pleasure, Mrs Lauriston?’

She took his arm and he led her to the floor. Neither of them spoke, she because she couldn’t, he because he had planned every last detail of his strategy. Their steps matched as perfectly as they had done on the only other occasion when they had ever danced together, at the Northern Meeting ball in Inverness in 1814. Twenty-one years ago. After a while, as if she had voiced her thought, he said, ‘You were wearing blonde lace that evening, too, I remember.’ There was no caress in the words, spoken with a faint accent she didn’t recognize, only a chilling matter-of-factness. She smiled as if she had forgotten. ‘Was I?’ And that was all.

Afterwards, he restored her to her party. Georgy was back, and knew who he was before he had the opportunity to say a word.
‘Mon dieu!’
she squealed. ‘My erring papa! Where in the world have you sprung from?
Ça, c’est renversant!
Emile, it’s
mon beau-père,
the second husband of my mama! The one who ran away to America!’ It was Georgy’s habit to lard her English as liberally with French as her French with English; as good a way as any, Vilia had thought, of disguising her inadequacy in the tongue of her adopted country.

It didn’t disconcert Perry Randall at all. There was laughter in his eyes as he said, ‘How clever of you, my child, for I certainly would not have recognized you. If I hadn’t run across young Gideon Lauriston in Maryland a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t even have known you lived in Paris. I was aiming to call on you tomorrow.’

Vilia hadn’t heard from Gideon since the letter from New York, saying he was going to Baltimore. Was that in Maryland?

Georgy squeaked, ‘Oh, do! When did you arrive? Where are you staying? How long will you be here?’

‘I arrived a couple of days ago. I’m racking up at the embassy. And I’ll be around for three or four weeks. You haven’t changed at all, have you! As volatile as ever, in spite of two children and – but I guess I shouldn’t mention how many years of growing up!’

Georgiana blushed and giggled. ‘You can’t
wish
to stay at a dreary embassy. Oh, and gracious heavens – I suppose it must be the
American
embassy. Pray, do come to us instead. We have room and to spare. It would be such fun! Emile and I would be
enchantés
to have you.’

Her husband, who looking anything but enchanted, added his voice to hers, but Perry said, ‘Thank you, no. The secretary is a personal friend of mine, and it would be discourteous to spurn his hospitality. We Americans set great store by hospitality, you know!’ There was a gleam in his eye as he bowed, saying, ‘Tomorrow, though. Mrs Lauriston. Georgy. Your servant, sir, and yours, Savarin.’ He turned away and vanished in the crowd.

After that, somehow, the ball seemed to lose its glitter. It was raining when the time came to leave, and a gusty wind had come up. The waiting carriages seemed to stretch for miles, and the palace servants, scornful of the democracy that reigned indoors, summoned them up in the strictest order of precedence. M. Savarin did not stand high in the social register, and Vilia had the feeling that, if this had been a private house, the footmen would already have begun snuffing the candles by the time they got away. She also had the feeling that, regardless of rank, the tall formidable-looking gentleman from her past had probably been among the first to drive off. By the time Savarins’ coach reached the Avenue Matignon, even Georgy’s relentless vivacity was showing signs of wear.

Vilia didn’t sleep at all that night. How
dared
he treat her so politely, so distantly, as if there had never been anything between them! He who had fathered her child; who had come to her again in 1822, wanting only her body; who had scarcely even troubled to write to her afterwards, despite all his protestations. And who, carelessly or of intent, had told Luke Telfer in 1829 things that could still have wrecked her life, and almost had. Afterwards, he had paid a single visit to Marchfield House, wanting only her body again, she supposed – but not very much, for he had not come a second time. Since then, she had taught herself to hate him. It had been the shock, the surprise, she told herself, that had caused her temporarily to forget it.

In the morning, she left the house at eleven, a good hour before he could be expected to call. When Georgy protested, she said, ‘my dear, I hardly know the man, and I’m sure you would prefer to have him to yourself. I am going sightseeing. No, don’t fret. I don’t need any other protector than Sorley. His French may be rough and ready, but even if my own were not perfectly adequate, his smile removes obstacles in France just as effectively as it does at home.’

She knew there was no danger of Perry Randall being pressed to stay to dinner, since they were dining out, but Georgy couldn’t stop talking about him. He had admired little Gabrielle and Guy, of course, and complimented Georgiana on becoming a true Parisienne, envying her accent. His own, he said, once perfectly respectable, was scarcely understood in Paris now, for he was used to talking the patois of Louisiana, where he travelled much on business. ‘And he is,
évidemment,
a success, for he has a house in Boston and another in New York! I wonder why he hasn’t married again?’ she said thoughtfully, and Vilia felt a queer, twisting sensation in her diaphragm. ‘For one must admit,
n’est-ce pas,
that he doesn’t look like a man vowed to celibacy!’

Later, Vilia discovered that she need not have troubled to stay out all day. It was Perry Randall’s first visit to Paris, as it was hers, and Georgy, more than a little dazzled by her stepfather’s looks and style, had volunteered to act as his and Vilia’s guide to the city. Vilia, about to demur, caught Emile Savarin’s eye. He was not very tall, verging on rotundity, and vaguely dissipated in a lethargic way. She didn’t care for him, but she could well see why he would prefer her to take part in any such expeditions. Georgy’s sense of propriety was not to be relied on, even if – to do Perry Randall reluctant justice – his almost certainly was. In any case, Vilia could think of no legitimate reason for refusing.