Bellefleur (54 page)

Edgar’s two little boys dined at noon and then again at 5:30, upstairs in the nursery, with their tutor. The very first morning after her arrival at Schaff Hall, Christabel, in a bright-flowered frock, with a yellow scarf tied about her head, passed by the nursery just to peer inside . . . and saw, to her surprise, and very much to her interest, the man who must have been the boys’ tutor: he was standing at an opened window, glasses in one hand, rubbing the bridge of his nose and muttering to himself. He was no age
Christabel
could determine. His ash-blond hair was ill-cut, falling unevenly across his collar; his jaw, clean-shaven, was strong but almost too square; the leather patch on the right elbow of his tweed jacket was hanging loose. He was quite solidly built, like a young ox, and more resembled a farmer’s son than a tutor said to have been educated abroad, in England and Germany, and to have been employed by the very best families in the East.

Something about his stance, his air of lassitude and melancholy, touched Christabel to the heart. She stared, standing in the doorway, and halfway thought he looked familiar. That agreeably homely profile, those clumsily broad shoulders that made his coat strain into wrinkles across the back . . .

He turned, suddenly, and drew in his breath at the sight of her.

It was Demuth Hodge . . . !

Passion

I
t was as a consequence of an astonishing outburst of passion—remarkable in one so frail, and so customarily meek—that Garnet Hecht encountered Lord Dunraven, who was to bring so much guilt-ridden torment into her life.

She had arranged (her heart sinking at his weary
politeness
) to see her lover once again, after so many months of mutual renunciation: she did not like to think that she nearly pleaded with him, her tear-brimmed eyes if not her words begging O Gideon you must know how I love you, I have always loved you, I continue to love you despite the promise we made never again to see each other, the promise we made in order not to hurt Leah and your children. . . . (And had she not behaved nobly, surrendering her baby girl to the castle, to the Bellefleurs, guessing that this was the baby’s father’s unarticulated wish? How nobly, with what heartrending pain, only she herself knew. . . . Even good Mrs. Pym, who, alone among the Bellefleurs seemed to know, without having been told, of her liaison with Gideon, could not have guessed (for Garnet kept her sobbing to herself, and sometimes, in the pantry or the kitchen, thrust her fingers in her mouth to keep from moaning aloud at the double loss of her lover and her baby) at the depth of her suffering. Della frequently touched Garnet’s shoulder and smiled sadly and spoke of her own terrible bereavement, at the hands of her own people, when she had been a young bride. “We must tell ourselves, Garnet—
This too will pass,
” Della said. “Every morning, every midday, every evening, when silly hopeful persons say their prayers, like children, we must say, calmly and clearly—
This too will pass.
For it will, my dear! Never doubt but that it will!”)

While accompanying Mrs. Pym on a weeklong visit to the castle, shortly after the surprising occasion of Miss Christabel’s marriage to Edgar Holleran von Schaff III, Garnet was able to draw aside (discreetly, though she trembled violently that they might be discovered even in so innocent a place as the nursery, where she was “visiting with” Cassandra) her lover Gideon; and to arrange for a secret meeting very late on the following night. “I will make no demands of you,” she whispered. “But we
must
meet. One final time.” Gideon, dressed for the outdoors, his dark beard newly trimmed (but it was, now, Garnet saw with a pang of love, threaded with gray—
silver-gra
y), his somewhat prominent eyes darting quickly about behind her (touching upon, and veering off, the beautiful Cassandra napping on her stomach in the cradle), seemed at first incapable of speaking. He opened his mouth—smiled—the smile thinned—he blinked rapidly—cleared his throat—looked her full in the face—and, wincing, drew back an inch or two, as if involuntarily. She could see that, for Gideon as well as herself, even so casual a meeting was painful: it was likely that he suffered as she did, though of course he would never speak of such things. “I know, I know, this violates our promise,” Garnet said quickly, half feeling pity for him (for herself, she had long abrogated pity, as unworthy of one who was loved by, and had borne a child for, Gideon Bellefleur), “but you must understand that I am desperate . . . I am so lonely . . . I’m afraid that something terrible will happen to me. . . . Ah, it was good, really, though your wife could not have known, that she came to take my baby away from me!” Garnet whispered.

“Don’t talk like that, don’t say such foolish things,” Gideon said. “If you say them they are likely to become—”

She touched her fingers daringly to his lips. “Then we’ll meet? Tomorrow? And you won’t despise me? And you will come?”

He seized her hand and, hesitating a moment, kissed it; or anyway pressed it to his cold lips. Garnet was to feel the imprint of those lips against her hand (but it was the back of her hand, for he had, oddly, turned it at the very last instant) for many hours. Shamelessly, like a young girl new to love, and delirious with its promise, she had even kissed her own hand—hoping her foolishness would go unobserved.

“He does love me,” she murmured aloud to her wan, indistinct reflection, as she plaited her hair for bed that night. “But his love makes our predicament all the more tragic. . . .”

AND SO THEY
met, the following night. In the unused room on the third floor of the east wing where, so very long ago, in another lifetime, Garnet had gone, at Mrs. Pym’s suggestion, to bring poor Gideon some nourishment. It was in the doorway of that room, in the shadowy corridor outside the room, that Garnet, staring as Gideon Bellefleur tore with ravenous appetite at the meat she had brought him, that she fell—plunged—was thrown, violently—in love. She had wanted to cry aloud O Gideon I love you, you must know, you cannot not know. . . . Perhaps (she sometimes wondered, reliving that night) she
had
cried aloud. . . .

Meeting
there
had been Garnet’s idea. But if it struck her lover as foolishly sentimental, he gave no indication. (But then Gideon was so polite. So impassively courteous. Garnet had once overheard, out in the garden, one humid August afternoon, Leah herself shouting at him—What do you mean, showing that frosty insupportable gentlemanliness to
me,
to your own wife, who knows you inside and out!) Instead he merely nodded, and repeated the time she had said—1:00 
A.M.
—in a hurried and preoccupied manner.

Well before 1:00 
A.M.
Garnet slipped away, and climbed the drafty stairs to the third floor, daring only a small candle (whose flame flickered wildly, cupped behind her hand), for fear of being discovered. Bellefleur Manor, even during the day, was intimidating: there were corridors, and corners, and dark little niches, that looked as if no one ever visited them; and of course the sillier women, and even some of the men, among the domestic staff, freely complained of ghosts. But Garnet did not believe in ghosts. She found it difficult, at times, to believe in flesh-and-blood people—even in
herself
—certainly in the baby to whom she had given birth. . . . There were only the cruel stretch marks on her abdomen and a certain oversensitivity about her breasts, even after many months, to remind her of the arduous physical reality of her motherhood.

In preparation for the many houseguests who were to have stayed at Bellefleur Manor, for great-grandmother Elvira’s birthday celebration, all the rooms had been cleaned; and in many—in
this
room, for instance—furniture had been reupholstered and new carpets laid. So Garnet’s first impression was one of pleased surprise. The really quite filthy carpet upon which Gideon had slept was gone, and in its place lay what appeared to be an attractive thick-piled rug. There were chairs—a bureau—a large mirror—several small tables, inlaid with marble—and of course a bed—a double bed—a canopied bed with high pillows and a thick crimson cover. Blushing, Garnet saw by the flickering light (and perhaps she saw inaccurately, for the candle
did
flicker) a most embarrassing tapestry hanging just to the right of the bed: it showed a scantily clad couple, the woman as well as the man quite full-bodied, and vigorous, and impatient to make love, being surprised in a boudoir by—could it be?—a lascivious little Cupid leading, down a staircase, a horse—a horse with outlandish long eyelashes and a queer human expression. The lovers gaped with surprise: and indeed who would
not
have been surprised?

Garnet was staring at this strange tapestry (she could not decide if it was obscene, or merely playful; or both; but in any case it should be taken down and stored at the very back of a closet) when she heard a sound in the corridor. For some reason (had she doubted, even then, her lover’s truthfulness?) her first thought was that someone other than Gideon was there. One or two of the male servants had expressed an interest in her—an interest, of course, fervently rebuffed—and there were tales of poor Hiram’s sleepwalking, which had evidently flared up again after some months of quiescence; and innumerable cats, some of them quite large, roamed the castle freely at night. So she stood, cringing, the little candle cupped in her hand, a young woman who—despite her motherhood, despite her passion—looked hardly more than a child, staring at the empty doorway as if she had no idea who might appear.

And then of course Gideon
did
arrive, with a flashlight in hand—
entering
the room boldly, yet without haste. He murmured a greeting and reached out to take her hand (ah, how awkward she was!—Garnet jerked away because of the candle she was holding, not wanting it to be upset, and then of course it
was
upset; and her lover, swearing, had to scramble for it across the rug), and managed at last to kiss her on the forehead. Yet something was wrong. Garnet felt it, she
knew,
unmistakably.

Nevertheless she spoke, gripping his arm. She spoke, too rapidly, of her love for him, which had not ebbed, which had in fact increased—though, yes, she
knew
they had promised never to say such things again—never to torment themselves. But she had to break her vow: her life was so empty, so miserable, so futile. It was all the more intolerable, she told him, that his wife (who meant well—of course Leah always meant well) chattered about finding a “suitable” husband for her, and had even been making inquiries about eligible bachelors and widowers in the area. Couldn’t he speak—discreetly, of course—to Leah? Didn’t Leah realize how such remarks wounded Garnet? Didn’t
he
realize? But that wasn’t the primary cause of her unhappiness, as he must know. Even the surrender of Cassandra—which had nearly broken her heart—wasn’t the primary cause.

And then, suddenly, desperately, she threw herself into his arms.

Gideon held her, rather awkwardly. He patted her back, he murmured words she could not interpret; he behaved, in short, exactly as Gideon
Bellefleur
—as nearly any Bellefleur, for that matter—might have behaved if, in public, quite suddenly, unpredictably, a grieving stranger had fairly collapsed in his arms.

Sobs wracked her body. She
knew
—knew from the very moment he entered the room, really—that he no longer loved her. (And the hairsbreadth of a thought which she hadn’t quite had, about the handsome big bed—how that would return to haunt her, poor humiliated Garnet Hecht!) Still she could not keep herself from saying, “O I love you, I can’t stop loving you, you are a prince among men, I
can’t
stop loving you—please, Gideon—please don’t abandon me! Haven’t I given up my baby girl for
you,
for your sake—Haven’t I doomed myself to a life of sorrow, knowing that my child will grow up apart from me—and even if she knows I am her mother, still—”

Gideon stepped back from her, blinking. He asked her to repeat what she had said.

“About Cassandra? Why, I—I—”

“You gave her up for
me?
” Gideon asked, baffled. “But what do you mean?—for
me?
”

“I—I naturally thought—”

“Leah told me that you had begged her to take the child: that you didn’t want her: that the baby would interfere with your chances of getting married. What do you mean, now, by saying that you gave her up for
me?
”

He stared at her with such incredulity, with such an air of—of
unloving
alarm—that Garnet came close to swooning. She stammered, “I thought—I only thought—Leah and Hiram came to visit Mrs. Pym, you see, and—and— And somehow it came about— I don’t remember clearly— I don’t remember most things clearly, now— O Gideon I had thought
you
—you were behind it—sending them—her—to bring your own child back—to rear her as a Bellefleur—of course without letting Leah know— I had thought,” Garnet whispered, “that it might even have been a test of—of—a test of my love for you—”

Gideon stepped back. He exhaled loudly—puffed out his cheeks and extended his lower lip and blew upward, so that his hair was stirred—in a gesture Ewan frequently made, to show half-amused disgust and
bewilderment
. “. . . but no not
really,
” he muttered.

“Gideon?” Garnet cried, reaching for him, stumbling toward him, “do you mean—do you mean—you didn’t— As Cassandra’s father you
didn’t
especially want her—?”

He stepped back again, eluding her. As her fingers groped for his sleeve he brushed them half-consciously away. For a long moment he appeared unable to speak. A vein pulsed in his forehead, and another in his throat. “. . . so it was Leah . . . Leah’s idea . . . she
knows
. . . must know . . . but why did she do it . . . to spite me, or . . . to spite you. . . . Or is there another reason . . .”