A Rather Charming Invitation (7 page)

I was seated to Oncle Philippe’s right, and Jeremy was seated to Leonora’s right, so that Jeremy and I were not directly across from each other. Still, this put us much closer than the other couples were to their mates. Leonora must have read my thoughts, for she said laughingly, “You see, you and Jeremy have been spared—you sit closer, because you are not yet married, and are still in the lovebirds stage.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts!” cried the retired general, who had a very stiff-necked, military way of holding his head. “While you still adore the sound of each other’s voice.” He patted Jeremy on the shoulder as he passed his chair, en route to his own seat.

“And you?” said the stout mayor to the general. “Is your wife’s voice not music to your ears?”

“But of course!” replied the general, clapping his hands over both ears as if to shut out the sound. “All the more so, as I grow older and harder of hearing!” This was all done in a jocular way, but the general’s petite wife shook her head in resigned tolerance of these dumb I-love-my-wife-but jokes.

The mayor’s wife, who was thin and soft-voiced, retorted, “Yes, a deaf husband is a blessing, but a blind one is even better, so he cannot see the young girls and embarrass them with his flirting!” She nodded toward me, as if to reprimand the general for teasing a woman young enough to be his daughter.

It was good- natured banter, but I suddenly experienced one of those strange involuntary “irks” I’d been having lately, whenever somebody disparaged marriage. In the past, such jokes struck me as silly, but I had supposed it was just a way of letting off steam, although I never found them particularly funny, and I noticed that most wives didn’t, either. Now, however, with these remarks deliberately made for my benefit as a bride, or, even worse, as a warning to Jeremy, the groom, I found myself less inclined to laugh them off. It provoked an image in my mind, of Jeremy and me, years from now, behaving just like these couples, exchanging jokey insults, and feigning a desire to escape each other’s company. Yuckyuck, hoo-hoo. I didn’t think it was so damned funny.

While I silently pondered this, Jeremy deliberately caught my eye and gave me such a smile of comprehension and reassurance that I instantly felt better. Plus, the arrival of the food also helped alter my mood—starting with the appearance of an appetizer of the tiniest, most tender artichokes of the season in a light butter sauce, sprinkled with delicate fresh goat cheese in herbs, accompanied by a lovely white wine the color of pale gold. Glancing around the table, I admired the way everything in the room—flowers, bowls of fruits on the sideboard, plates of perfectly proportioned good food, and the ladies’ dresses—all served to remind us to rejoice in the return of the sun.

Oncle Philippe conversed with me in a quiet, charming voice, like an aristocratic country squire who was perfectly content to while away his retirement in the country; but I soon learned that he was the hardworking steward of a family business that originated centuries ago with
gantiers parfumeurs
.

“What’s that?” I asked, fascinated.

“Glove-makers,” Oncle Philippe said, raising his hands to mime putting on a pair.

“But I thought your business was perfume,” I said.

“Ah, well, let me explain. You see, in the Middle Ages, the town of Grasse was a center for tanning sheepskins from herds in the mountains of Provence,” he told me. “They used herbs to treat the leather. So, later, when Catherine de’ Medici arrived from Italy to become France’s queen, she asked the tanners of Grasse to make fine perfumed gloves, which were all the fashion. So the tanners became
gantiers parfumeurs
. In the process, they also became highly skilled makers of scent, using the especially fine flowers and herbs from this region.”

“And so, perfumed gloves from Grasse became a status symbol for the whole world’s royalty, nobility and wealthy merchants,” Tante Leonora interjected proudly.

The other guests appeared familiar with this story, and now the elderly doctor chimed in, offering, “They say it was also Catherine de’ Medici who first taught the French to eat with a knife and fork.” He held up his fork to make the point. Glancing over at Jeremy, his eyes twinkled as he added, “Of course the English took a bit longer to learn. One still hears that they haven’t quite got it right, what with scooping up their peas on the knife.”

He beamed at their resident Englishman; and Jeremy took the joke with good grace. The doctor’s white- haired wife reached out and patted Jeremy’s hand soothingly, as if to assure him that the insult wasn’t serious, and she did so in a highly feminine way, indicating that she enjoyed the excuse to touch a handsome younger man. There was something fascinating about an elderly woman still being sexy, and we all enjoyed it, for it was inoffensive even to me, Jeremy’s partner.

“After the French Revolution, when symbols of royalty, like powdered wigs and perfumed gloves, went out of style, the
gantiers parfumeurs
focused simply on being
parfumeurs
,” Oncle Philippe said. “
En fin
, they created the famous perfumeries of Grasse.”

He proudly added that his company still retained their own flower fields in Grasse. This, I realized, explained the wonderful preponderance of blossoms in the château, and the sophisticated toiletries in our room.

When the conversation had begun, I’d noticed that there was an empty seat beside me. Now, as Oncle Philippe was finishing the story of Grasse, Honorine slipped into this seat, almost unnoticed, as if the family was so horrified by her breach of etiquette that they simply chose to ignore it. She kept her eyes focused on her plate, clearly trying to avoid the gaze of Charles, who sat directly across the table from her. Charles appeared to be an intelligent, genial kid, but one who was indulged and petted by his parents; particularly his mother, a tall, attractive woman with light brown hair, who seemed aware of his every move. The broad-shouldered father seldom spoke, but he and his wife listened with watchful expressions; and more than once I saw them exchange glances whose meaning was clear only to them. The fact that they, too, ignored Honorine’s entrance made it all the more significant.

Evidently Honorine had been dodging Charles as long as she could, which accounted for her absence during cocktails. She’d missed the appetizer, but now, as the plates were cleared, and a chicken consommé topped with tiny, precisely cut vegetables was served, she turned to me and, under cover of the distraction of food, whispered that her mom had roundly scolded her for intruding on us in London.

“I hope you can find a moment to speak to my parents on my behalf,” Honorine whispered. “Could you perhaps tell them that it wasn’t so horrible to put me up for a few nights?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll tell them we made you wash the dishes.” Honorine giggled conspiratorially, but we both caught the flicker of disapproval in Tante Leonora’s face, and this caused Honorine to flush angrily, and jut her chin out a bit defiantly.

Uh-oh
, I thought to myself, wondering what dreadful mother-daughter tangle I might have inadvertently allowed myself to become ensnared in. Charles’ mother was watching, too, I noted.

“Penny, I do see a great deal of your father in you!” Leonora said, now gazing at me intently. “Perhaps not only in looks, but in temperament, too?”

She turned to the others and said, “My cousin Georges was a restless man,
très indépendant
, who simply had to go away and see the world. New York captivated him, and would not give him back. Then, he moved again, to Connecticut!” Her tone was bewildered, and ever so slightly resentful. “Now, his daughter also feels compelled to leave home, but her travels have brought her
back
to France, to make up for our loss of Georges.”

Geez, I thought, she’s making it sound as if my dad was dead—perish the thought—or, that he was one of those ancient explorers who ignored all warnings, sailed away to the edge of the map and fell off. I recalled my father saying that his relatives were so averse to change that “you cannot move a stick of furniture in a room without coming to grief”.

“Americans are always moving from one house to another!” observed the professor. There was a murmur of amazement, as if they were all baffled by the size and scale of America, and of the prospect of voluntarily uprooting oneself from one state to the other. In their milieu, I realized, one relied on the family home for centuries.

But this little ripple on the calm surface of the conversation was soon smoothed away by the arrival of the next course—Alpine lamb accompanied by Provençal red wine. The excellent repast soon created a more relaxed, convivial mood where the talk became even more spirited, increasing a bit in volume. It was as if the food, wine, and conversation was lifting us all together, and we’d embarked on an old- fashioned balloon ride, with everyone doing their part to keep the balloon afloat. Even when discussing potentially prickly topics like art and politics and science, I noticed that Tante Leonora was particularly skilled at keeping the talk artfully lighthearted, yet never lightweight.

 

 

After a dessert of a small, wonderful airy chocolate soufflé, we took our coffee and liqueurs in the salon. Then, Tante Leonora announced, “And now, we go to the gallery, where we have a little surprise for Penny and Jeremy.”

Mystified, we followed her out to the entrance hall, quietly, in a very solemn procession. Leonora pointed upward, to something I hadn’t really noticed earlier in this high-ceilinged hall: opposite the main stairs and the second-level landing, right above the front door, was a graceful walkway, like a narrow balcony with a wrought-iron railing, that spanned the entire width of the hall. Two long, splendid windows were centered here, above the door and walkway.

While we stood there, Tante Leonora touched a light switch, which illuminated the area between the windows. Now I saw that a baroque tapestry was hanging as an
entrefenêtre
in the considerable space there. I gazed upward at the tapestry, which looked to be about nine feet high, and five feet wide. It seemed to bear the image of a man and woman asleep in bed, surrounded by other fanciful designs.

With great ceremony, Tante Leonora proclaimed, “As we have two betrothed young people among us, it would give us much pleasure to make a loan of our bridal tapestry to Penny and Jeremy for their wedding day.”

There was a collective gasp of excitement and approval, and the little group even broke out in applause. I was stunned. Leonora brought us to a small, spiral staircase in the far right corner of the hall, which led up to the walkway. Everyone ascended, single file, to admire the tapestry more closely. Along the way, I noticed other, smaller artwork hanging on the walls, beyond the windows. But now the guests were considerately arranging themselves so that I could move directly in front of the tapestry, to get a really good look. I drew nearer, fascinated.

I knew a little about tapestries because of all my movie research, scouring artwork and furnishings for the sets of historical dramas. To me, tapestries usually fall into one of three camps: the purely decorative, like a carpet or quilt; the political, which are loaded with either flattery for the patron, or propaganda about a country’s wars and conquests; or, the truly artistic, mystical ones, which can be downright spooky, in the way that they seem to beckon you to come closer—as if they want to whisper the secret to a complex riddle of life. The tapestry I was now gazing at was definitely in this intriguing category. In fact, it made me feel as if I had just stepped into another world, where some drama was already in progress, for it was composed of such an elaborate series of pictures that it was impossible to take in all at once, nor even to know where to begin.

It was made of wool and silk and gilt-metal-wrapped thread, which meant that strands of real gold and silver were woven into the fabric, giving it a shimmering quality that was changeable—at times like undulating sunlight reflected on the sea, at other moments like flickering candlelight—and these precious threads were so intricately entwined that, up close, the weave almost resembled fish-scales.

The overall pattern in the main body of the tapestry was deceptively simple: it seemed to be a bedroom, with a husband and wife asleep in bed; he in a peaked cap, and she in a bonnet. The interior of their bedroom—window, walls and floor—were also visible, but it was their flowered bedspread that made up most of the tapestry. Peering closer, I saw that the bedspread pattern was a field full of flowers, with horizontal paths in between. And upon these paths, little scenarios were played out, with groups of small figures walking in formal processions. At the very top of the bedspread, above all the processions, were two rows of oval insets with their own individual “snapshots” of drama, mainly of couples performing various seasonal tasks such as gathering the harvest. And so, the bedspread appeared to be a field of dreams that the sweet married couple were dreaming together.

Above the sleeping couple’s heads was a big, fan-shaped window, divided into three pie-shaped sections: one in the middle, with a view of faraway hills, sky and sea; one on the left, where a half-moon shone with an elegant, aristocratic expression on its profile; and one on the right, with a regal sun-face whose fiery rays emanated outward. Meanwhile, in the background of the couple’s bedroom, the carpeted floor and wall-draperies were covered with still more images, but these were godly, allegorical figures and faces, personifying the four elements and the four seasons. The entire main body of the tapestry was rimmed on all four sides by a decorative border, which served as a sort of “picture frame” scattered with Latin proverbs, flowers, birds and otherworldly creatures and symbols.

“Oh, she is bewitched by it!” I heard someone say behind me. I realized I’d gone into a private trance of delight, forgetting everybody and everything, as if nothing else existed except me and the tapestry—a sure sign of enchantment.