16
Clouds On The Horizon
Guy was bored and fidgety: he knew he’d see Rose very soon at Gilles’s engagement party but for the moment she seemed to have buried herself in the preparations for the damned thing. Apparently her sister was still in Paris: why the Hell couldn’t the girl see to her own engagement party, for God’s sake, instead of tying up Rose’s time? He dithered over the room in Tôq, changed his mind three times about giving it up, and finally decided he’d keep it on for a while but would go back to Paris for a couple of days, since there was very evidently no hope of seeing Rose until the bloody party was over and done with. In any case, there was a Motos Totos board meeting coming up—okay, he’d go up to Paris, attend the meeting, collect some clothes and drive down to Pop’s—well, the day before the party, perhaps. Or should he just go back to Tôq? No, Maman and Pop would put him through a damned interrogation as to why he didn’t want to stay with them. The fact that it was a good hour and a half’s drive to La Rance from Pop’s place apparently didn’t weigh with them.
He duly attended the board meeting, supported, as he’d said he would, Freddie Lapaix’s proposal to put out a line of high-class leather jackets under the Motos Totos label, joined Freddie in impressing upon their partners and co-directors that the right advertising for this new line would not be cheap but that it would be money well spent, agreed to accompany Freddie to see their advertising agency next week, and went out to dinner and a nightclub with Freddie and Freddie’s wife, who was in broadcasting, Jean-Jacques Blanchard and Jean-Jacques’s permanent girlfriend, who was in publishing, and Nicolas Morand and Nicolas’s permanent girlfriend, who was an actress. Jean-Jacques’s girlfriend asked him where Chloé was and Guy replied grimly he neither knew nor cared. Nicolas asked him in some surprize if there was no-one at the moment, then, and Guy told him to mind his own business. Freddie suggested, sniggering, it must be a married woman who couldn’t get away tonight and Guy bit his head off. At the nightclub all three young women, who were without exception smart and attractively with-it, kindly offered to dance with him, but Guy merely sat and drank.
Not surprisingly he had an awful head the next morning and it took him the better part of the day to get to the point where he felt even halfway human. At around four in the afternoon he was sitting in a quiet little bar off the Boulevard St Germain over a coffee, wondering if he could (a) face actual food or (b) force himself to walk down to the Boule’ Mich’ and look in his favourite bookshop, and feeling that the answer to both of these was no, when there was a fierce gust of Madame Rochas, and a female voice drawled: “Mais dis-donc! Is this your stamping ground, then, mon petit?”
“No. Is it yours, Henriette?” returned Guy sourly.
Henriette Verdeuil sank onto the chair next to his, depositing a pile of shopping on the chair on her other side with a sigh. “Not exactly. I’ve been looking at lamps.”
Guy glanced at the carrier bags and raised his eyebrows a little. “Lamps. I see.”
“I have chosen one,” she said irritably. “They’re delivering it.”
“Passionnant,” he murmured.
The waiter came up and Henriette ordered a coffee and a Perrier. Guy decided he could face a jus d’orange if they had it pressé. No, they only had it en bouteille. In that case he couldn’t, he’d have a Perrier, too.
“So you’re getting rid of that fake Louis XVI junk in your sitting-room at last?” he murmured.
Henriette returned indignantly: “When have you ever seen—” She broke off.
Guy raised his eyebrows at her.
“Gilles, I suppose,” she said tightly.
“But of course. Even the most discreet man will sometimes gossip in his cups.”
“Des conneries!” retorted Henriette angrily.
“True,” he agreed, unphased. “Dear Gilles never gets drunk—so boring, isn’t it?”
“Whereas you’re apparently in the throes of a hangover as we speak,” she noted acidly.
“Also true. But as I was about to say, Gilles commented to my father in a relaxed moment,”—he eyed her mockingly—“on the unpleasing décor of your sitting-room, and le bon vieux ‘Pop’ passed it on to me. –He can’t hold his tongue, you see.”
“Did he, indeed?” she said grimly. “Well, tit for tat: he commented in a relaxed moment to me on the unpleasing aspects of your behaviour in general and lack of integrity in particular.”
“I’m flattered; didn’t you have anything better to talk about, tous les deux?”
Henriette’s mouth tightened angrily. She didn’t reply.
“Have a baba au rhum, Henriette,” he murmured. “The calories will do you so much good. Psychologically if not physically.”
“Non!” she snapped. “—Merci,” she said weakly to the waiter as he set down their order. “No, I wouldn’t,” she added grimly as he then asked if Madame would like a baba. Guy collapsed in sniggers.
Henriette drank Perrier grimly.
Guy sipped his slowly. “Don’t let’s quarrel, Henriette, darling,” he said. “After all, if our interests don’t precisely coincide, at least they don’t conflict, do they?”
Henriette’s small, pursed mouth tightened.
“Put it like this: if I could get rid of the petite dame en gris, darling,” he drawled: “wouldn’t you be very, very pleased with little Guy?
He had, of course, no serious intentions of doing anything at all about getting rid of Linnet, or of doing anything to help Henriette get Gilles back. He was bored and in a bad mood and not averse either to raising false hopes in Henriette’s well-supported bosom or to shocking her extremely bourgeois sensibilities. Or both, preferably.
“What do you mean?” she said blankly. “That stupid painting he hangs in his study? Why should I want you to get rid of it?”
“Mais non!” he gasped ecstatically. “We are behind the times, aren’t we!”
She put two lumps of sugar in her coffee and stirred it grimly. ‘Well, go on, if you must,” she said in a bored voice.
“Now where shall I start?” he wondered. “Eugh… oui. You know that dear Oncle Gilles is fixated on that painting? Has been for years: it used to drive Isabelle to a fury,” he added untruthfully: Isabelle had been indifferent to all of Gilles’s interests and particularly indifferent to anything he did when closeted in his study at La Rance.
“Fixated on his great-grandmother: passionnant,” she noted.
“Kinky, isn’t it?” he said happily. “Even I have to admit she is fascinating, though, darling: a little slip of a creature with pale delicate shoulders and the cutest pair of perky tits.” He eyed Henriette’s well-upholstered bosom, today in a smart black wool suit under a black fur coat which she’d flung back over her chair. “And great big hazel eyes.”
“Get on with it,” she said, sipping her coffee. “If you must.”
“Let me see—yes, here I have to introduce some unfortunate family history. Though of course Oncle Gilles may have told you all of this already!” he said brightly.
Henriette didn’t reply. She felt in her purse and produced an alabaster lighter and a packet of American menthol cigarettes.
“Allow me,” said Guy, taking the lighter.
“Merci,” she said, avoiding his eyes as he lit the cigarette for her.
The ice-blue Bellecourt eyes sparkled maliciously; he said: “Hé bien, the historical petite dame, Gilles’s several-greats grandmother, had a son who was very charming but very naughty and feckless. He practised, to put it delicately, the droit de seigneur with all the young women of the neighbourhood.”
Henriette blew out a stream of smoke. “So he got up the local peasant women; does this story go anywhere in the next five hours? Because I’ve got an engagement this evening.”
“Certainly: the descendant of one of these local peasant women emigrated to Australia and there produced offspring,” said Guy, extra-bland.
Henriette’s nostrils flared. She picked up her coffee cup in her free hand. “So?”
Guy shrugged. “The rest is history. This Linnet Müller that Oncle Gilles has fallen for so heavily is a throwback, paraît-il. –I haven’t yet seen her, you understand, but Maman and Fabien have assured me she is.”
Henriette said nothing for a moment. She set the coffee cup down and drew on her cigarette.
“They’re in town, I believe,” she said finally, expelling a stream of smoke.
“Only until the engagement party,” replied Guy politely.
“So I believe.” She drew on the cigarette again. “I saw that fool, Isabelle Fleuriot du Hamel, at Armani’s showing last month; I suppose that was her with her?”
“I think that would depend on the particular day it was.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know when it was! A slim girl in a pale grey wool dress.” She frowned. “And brown mink.”
Guy flicked a glance at the coat she’d flung back so casually. Marmot—dyed black. In very good condition, but she’d worn it ever since he’d known her—about six years, now. “Oh, very definitely brown mink, yes. And had you looked closely, you would have observed that he’s given her the Bellecourt marquise emerald,” he murmured.
Henriette choked on her cigarette.
Guy sat back and watched her mockingly through his lashes.
“Rubbish! He didn’t even give it to Isabelle!” she gasped.
“How very true.”
She gulped down the remains of her Perrier and drew angrily on her cigarette. “No fool like an old fool,” she said grimly. “I think the whole of Paris knows he’s besotted, Guy: but thank you for confirming it so gracefully.”
“My pleasure.”
She finished the cigarette in silence, frowning. Guy sipped his coffee slowly, watching her.
“And how do you imagine you’re going to get rid of the girl?” she said at last, stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray.
He shrugged. “Several schemes immediately spring to mind, darling. Marry her myself?”
She gave a scornful laugh. “Don’t be an idiot! You may be a very pretty fellow, dear, but he’s got the title and the money!”
“Quite. Well... disillusion dear Oncle Gilles about her?”
“I’d like to see you try!”
“Don’t you think I’m pretty enough to cause this petite dame a few flutters, Henriette?” he drawled.
“You may be: but are you brave enough to face Gilles with the proof?” she returned drily.
“Perhaps in these days of the home video, one would not have to face him.”
“Oh, very good, Guy! Now all you have to do is get close enough to her—without him spotting you, of course—get her into bed—also without him spotting you—and get a friend to video the pair of you!”
“I do have friends who’d be happy to oblige, Henriette,” he said blandly.
Henriette reddened. “Sans doute.”
“Well? Don’t you think that sort of disillusionment would be enough to make him fly back to your well-tried charms? After all, a middle-aged man who finds out that he’s been making a fool of himself over a girl half his age won’t be likely to look for consolation amongst the—eugh—the younger generation, will he?”
She took out another cigarette.
Guy picked up the lighter. “Well?”
Henriette’s eyes met his over the flame. “An amusing scenario.” She drew in smoke. “Merci,” she said, expelling it, and holding out her hand for the lighter. Guy dropped it into the palm from a little height. Henriette’s colour rose: she put it back in her handbag without speaking.
“There would be no guarantee that he would fly back to your loving arms, of course,” he murmured.
“No, and there’s no guarantee that I’d have him back, either!” she said angrily.
“Oh?”
Her nostrils had flared. She said tightly: “He made it very plain that it was all over, and—” She broke off. “Bof!” she said, drawing on the cigarette with a little shrug.
“O, là, là!” he choked. “Darling, did you tell him what you thought of him?”
“All right, I did; so what?”
“Only that you seem to have cooked your goose. Women,” said Guy, looking at her through his lashes, “have no forethought.”
“Oh, grow up! I could see it was no good!”
“Ah. But nevertheless, revenge is sweet?” He raised his eyebrows. “Tu trouves pas?”
This time Henriette Verdeuil didn’t tell him not to tutoyer her. “Could you, do you think?”
“One would have to find her reasonably attractive.”
“She’s pretty enough—whey-faced, but if you like that sort!” she said impatiently, shrugging.
“But do I?”
“Oh, rubbish, Guy! Get the girl in your flat, a little snort of coke to ginger you up if you can’t manage it without help—!”
Guy looked at her with interest, his mouth a little open. He passed the tip of his tongue slowly across his top teeth, touching his upper lip briefly. A deep scarlet flush rose up Henriette’s neck and her bosom rose and fell under the smart black suit-jacket. He smiled slowly. “Darling, did you refer so casually to naughty hard drugs in Oncle Gilles’s company?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Of course not. The man’s the prude to end all prudes.”
“It must have been so boring for you, Henriette: why did you stick with him for so long?”
“Never mind that. Can you do it?”
“Possibly I can: ouais,” he drawled. “What will you give me if I do?”
She gave a short crack of scornful laughter. “Me? There’s nothing in it for me—except, as you so percipiently remarked, the sweetness of revenge. If you do it, it’ll be to make sure of the property, and for no other reason!”
“Well, pure spite,” he murmured. “No, but you see: there’s the rub. Supposing that I did succeed, Oncle Gilles might be very, very cross with poor little me when he saw the evidence.”
Henriette snorted. “Might be!”
“Précisément,” he murmured. “And then he would undoubtedly cut me out of his will. Because you see, none of the property is entailed.”
“Not even the château?” she said, staring at him.
He shrugged. “Non.”
Henriette sniffed slightly. “In that case, enticing as the prospect is, I’d advise you against it, Guy.”
“I’d come to that conclusion,” he said sadly. “Of course, if I could sweep her off her feet before the wedding and marry her myself... Well, I wouldn’t need Oncle Gilles’s measly money, there’d be the tontine property, she’s a millionaire several times over through that.”
“How much has he lost, then?” she said, staring.
He shrugged. “Not very much, in real terms: she’s bringing a large portion of it back into the family when he marries her.”
“I see,” she allowed grimly.
Guy signalled for the waiter. “Tu veux quelque chose?” he said to her. “Non?” He ordered a Cognac for himself.
They were both silent until the waiter had brought it. Guy sipped it slowly. “The ideal scenario, of course,” he said dreamily, “would be for someone to get rid of the petite dame en gris before the wedding.”
“Obviously,” she said drily.
“Non, non!” he said laughing a little: “and then her share of the tontine money comes to her sister, and I marry the sister, and voilà! Instant millionaire!”
“You’re sure she’s left it all to the sister,” she noted.
“Yes. And before you say anything,” he said, grinning: “I’m very sure the sister would have me. Well, let’s say I already have that well in hand.”
“Fast worker,” noted Henriette drily.
“Merci.”
There was a short silence.
“Do you really know the sister?” said Henriette in a weak voice.
“Yes, I really know her: her name is Rose, she’s blonde and rather stupid, she’s got a nice figure, if a little solid in the hips and thighs, and—eugh—fucks with all the vigour and eagerness of her peasant ancestors,” he ended, eyeing her mockingly.
“And all the finesse, no doubt.”
He shrugged. “One doesn’t always require finesse. But perhaps Gilles didn’t explain to you that eagerness in one’s partner counts for a lot?”
Henriette ignored that. “All right, Guy,” she said sardonically: “how do you plan to get rid of this petite dame? Bearing in mind that anyone who benefitted from her death would be a prime suspect.”
“Unfortunately I haven’t been able to think of a foolproof plan, yet.”
“No,” she recognized drily. “Well, it’s been entertaining, but I won’t hold my breath.” She got up and put her coat back on. Guy just leaned back in his chair, watching her. “But if you want a few pointers,” she added in a very dry voice indeed, “I’ve got a spare ticket for the opera tonight.” She paused, looking at him mockingly. “Otello.”
Guy’s mouth twitched in amusement but he drawled: “In your company? Irresistible! –Who’s let you down?” he added with interest.
“My cousin Armand. He’s got the flu. Well?”
“Les fauteuils?” he returned.
“Yes. Unlike your damned uncle, I don’t run to a whole box any time I feel like it. Do you want it, or shall I let my maid sell it?”
“Come to that, I could sell it. –No, I’d like to see it. –Put it away, Henriette, for God’s sake,” he said as she opened her bag and produced the ticket: “I’ll pick you up at your place. Do you want to eat before or after?”
Henriette looked at her watch. “I’m getting my hair done... After.”
… “If you don’t change your mind,” she said on the curb, as he looked for a taxi for her, “for God’s sake wear something decent.”
“Conventional, you mean. Okay: it’ll be good practice for the conventional engagement party. –TAXI!” he yelled, darting into the traffic, waving madly.
Henriette muttered under her breath: “Salaud,” but smiled nicely as he put her into the taxi and said to him: “I’ll see you tonight, then; okay?”
“D’ac’! A tout à’l’!” he said, laughing and slamming the door.
In spite of the fact that during the last part of the conversation he had continued to use the informal “tu” and she had followed suit, Henriette didn’t altogether believe that he’d turn up. After all, she was nearly twice his age, what was in it for him? She didn’t flatter herself he found her irresistible. She was aware that he might well have derived a perverse and spiteful satisfaction from bedding her when she had been Gilles’s mistress. But now—no. She couldn’t see... Unless he really did want to involve her in some outlandish plot to murder cursed Gilles’s cursed petite dame? But that was ridiculous! Well, possibly he was bored and at a loose end. And she knew he did enjoy opera—most of the Bellecourts were musical.
But he did turn up. He was in his ragged fur overcoat, but she could see that underneath it he was wearing a conventional dinner suit, so she didn’t remark on it. She herself had put on a new gown that she wouldn’t have wasted on her elderly cousin Armand, who might have been an opera-lover and willing to spring for tickets in the fauteuils for both of them, but who was not only gay but a verbose bore besides, given to long dissertations on antique buttons, which he collected, snuff, which he took, and Burmese cats, which he bred. The dress was a beaded black creation: a very plain cut: long tight sleeves, smallish shoulder pads, a straight, narrow fall to the ankles, but slit to the knee on one side. It was high-necked but a three-cornered panel was cut out of the bodice above the breasts and below the neck, thus allowing a considerable expanse of the bosom to show but tactfully shielding the throat, which was no longer at its best. On one shoulder she wore a diamond sunburst; one wrist was adorned by a two-centimetre-wide flexible band of diamonds which her long earrings matched. The sunburst was not particularly good and dated from her marriage; the bracelet and earrings were not bad and had been a present from Gilles at the beginning of their relationship. As usual her shoes were very high-heeled; the shapely calf which was allowed to show in the slit of the gown was covered in a fine black gauze with a tiny pattern of fleurs-de-lis.
Guy looked at this conventional picture with a little smile but, though he wouldn’t have said so to her, was secretly relieved that she’d dressed her age. He helped her into her black fur coat and let his hands linger on her upper-arms for a moment as he did so.
Their taxi was caught in a snarl of traffic on the Boulevard Haussmann, and though they weren’t late they didn’t have much time to look around them before the overture struck up.
“Pas terrible,” he said, in the first interval.
Henriette nodded.
“Do you want to go out for a smoke? A drink?”
She refused, saying she was already one over her cigarette limit for the day. Guy was quite content to sit back and hope that mutual acquaintances would spot him with Oncle Gilles’s ex-mistress. Relatives would be nice, of course, but failing them—well, any close friend of Pauline’s would be lovely!
Henriette wasn’t displeased to be at the opera with an extremely handsome young man who was not gay, did not bore on about cats, buttons or snuff, and—well, who was extremely handsome and young. She nodded to one or two acquaintances, aware that they were wondering who on earth the young man was. There was no-one she needed to impress: who cared if they thought he was her toyboy? In fact, thought Henriette with a little smile, let’s hope they do think he’s my toyboy! She raised her opera glasses and surveyed the boxes slowly...
“What is it?” said Guy as she suddenly made a hissing noise through her teeth and sat up rigidly in her seat.
“Rien,” she said with difficulty. “Rien du tout. They’re here, that’s all. I suppose we might have expected— Well, after all I knew he was in town, and he often comes to the opera.”
Guy had followed her glance. He laughed softly. “Lend me your glasses?”
Henriette gave him the opera glasses and he adjusted them carefully, even though he’d seen at once it was Gilles with a slim young woman in a white dress.
After a moment he laughed again. “Mais—Odette et Odile!”
Henriette’s colour rose. “Très amusant, Guy,” she said coldly.
“Non, non, don’t be cross!” he said, lowering the glasses. “I’ve always found Odette an impossibly proper bore: Odile is much the more fascinating character!”
Henriette drew a deep breath. “Really?” she replied coldly. The girl with Gilles was also in a narrow beaded dress, which glittered under the lights. Hers, however, was not cut with immense cunning across the bust and neck: it clearly had no need to be. On the contrary, it had a lowered neckline so that the slender neck and pale shoulders were revealed, the sleeves being long but starting at about the level of the armpits. She was sitting down, so they couldn’t see much more. Except that the white dress was much more form-fitting than Henriette’s black, and that the girl had a narrow waist but a fairly full bosom. Henriette knew Gilles liked that: her hands clenched into fists.
Guy laughed again. “Mais oui, je t’assure!” He raised the glasses again.
Henriette was not short-sighted and she could see the pair quite well without the glasses, even to the expressions on their faces. As Guy stared the girl turned her head their way. Gilles bent his head to her, saying something and nodding towards the far side of the circle.
“Well?” she said grimly.
“Exquise,” said Guy, not lowering the glasses.
“Évidemment. Well, I didn’t get a very good look at her at the Collections: they were several rows in front of me.”
He smiled. “So I would have thought.”
“Look, for God’s sake stop staring, they’ll see you!” she hissed.
He lowered the glasses reluctantly. “I’d like to see her standing up. But yes—exquise, don’t you think?”
Henriette had recovered from her first shock. She shrugged. “I just said so, didn’t I? Exquise and half his age. –Is the sister anything like her?” she asked curiously.
“No. Well, the nose, and I think the way the eyes are set. She hasn’t got that odd hair, though; isn’t it extraordinary? It’s just like the portrait’s.”
“It must be genetic,” she returned drily.
“Hein?” He lifted the glasses again. “Ouais, bien sûr,” he murmured. “She was her ancestor, you know, la petite dame en gris.”
“Comment? Mais non, imbécile! The fixation with that shade of hair appears to be genetic!”
“Oh,” he said, lowering the glasses with a grin. “It’s odd, isn’t it? Sort of a—a pale bronze?”
“That’s certainly how he describes his damned portrait, yes.”
“Ah.” Guy stared again. He made a face. “Uxorious, isn’t he?”
“That’s obvious even without the opera glasses. And give them back: he’ll notice us.”
“Don’t you want him to?”
“I don’t want him to notice us rubber-necking at them, no,” replied Henriette tartly.
Guy laughed, but gave her back the glasses. “I must admit, seducing that would be a pleasure.”
“He appears to agree with you, there.”
“You’re jealous!” he discovered with a laugh.
“What did you expect?”
Guy picked up the hand that wore the bracelet. “Oh... I don’t know. Some sort of recognition that you’d done well enough out of him while it lasted?”
She snatched her hand back, scarlet and furious. “You nasty-minded little worm!” she said in a low, angry voice.
“I’m sorry, Henriette,” he said on a surprized note: “it wasn’t meant to be an insult. Just—eugh—a realistic observation. After all, you had him for six years or so, didn’t you?”
“Did I?” she said grimly.
“You certainly appeared to. There wasn’t anyone else during that period, I’m quite sure. Not on his part, at any rate.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, a little bird did just whisper to me about an episode with a charming Greek gentleman... Would it have been about two years back?”
“Shut up,” she said, biting her lip. “It was a stupid fling.”
“He knew, you know,” he drawled.
“Rubbish! How could he have known?” she gasped.
“You and the charming Ari weren’t exactly discreet, darling. It wasn’t as if it was a private island, after all. And Zizi Fleuriot du Hamel has horrible cousins all over Guadeloupe. Didn’t it strike you that dear Oncle Gilles’s interest waned rather soon after the episode
“He—” Henriette bit lip. “He was away on business for several weeks—” She broke off.
“See?”
“Oh, well, what does it matter!” she said impatiently. “I dare say he did any number of little secretaries and so forth on those damned business trips he’d never take me on.”
“You don’t know him at all, do you, Henriette?” he said curiously.
She reddened. “Nonsense! I know him a damn sight better than you do, I’m sure!”
Guy shrugged faintly. “How is dear Ari?” he said languidly as she flapped crossly through her programme.
“I haven’t seen him for—” Henriette broke off. “Why do you want to know?”
He shrugged again. “No particular reason. I thought perhaps you might get together again. Well, Gérard Fleuriot du Hamel said you seemed to be getting on so well together—!” He laughed softly
“So it was him,” she said grimly.
“Actually I think it was him, the bit of fluff he had with him, the bit of fluff’s girlfriend, the girlfriend’s boyfriend and the cousins they were all staying with. But the so-charming Gégé was certainly present.”
Henriette shrugged. After a moment she recalled hazily: “Didn’t he go into that Motos Totos thing with you?”
“Alas, no. One gathers his worthy Uncle Zizi warned him off us fly-by-night, get-rich-quick young entrepreneurs and our risky schemes for making money out of consumerist junk the whole world’s burning to take off our hands.”
“Is it going that well?”
He shrugged. “The car sales are doing reasonably well, but the accessories and up-market gear are going like a bomb. Apparently everyone and his dog wants a Motos Totos cap this season.”
“They’ll be out, next, then.”
“Yes, but by next season Motos Totos won’t be selling them any more. We’ll hock the rights to some prêt-à-porter firm for megabucks: let them manufacture them in bulk. –Well, my family has been on the fringes of the rag-trade forever, Henriette,” he said as her eyebrows rose in surprise. “I’m not deaf, blind and stupid when it comes to the ways of fashion!”
“So it would appear. I’m glad it’s going well. So what is young Gérard Fleuriot du Hamel doing?”
“Gone into nice safe old banking with his uncle, what else.”
“Oh. Like his brother, then?”
Guy made a face. “Bernard? Oui. The bore to end all bores. The centristes’ centriste. He and his wife, when last heard of, were threatening to set Gégé up with a nice little centriste wife of his own. Some German cow with a daddy in the Bundesbank, I think.”
Henriette shrugged. “That sounds typical.”
“Ouais. –So it’s no-go with Ari, then?”
“Why the Hell are you so interested?”
“Oh, pure altruism, darling.”
Henriette made a rude noise. She turned the pages of her programme restlessly, frowning a little. After a few moments she looked round cautiously. Their neighbours had gone out: so had the people immediately behind and in front of them. “Guy—” she began in a low voice. “Au nom de Dieu!” she cried as she saw he was again staring at Gilles’s box.
“Il nous a vus!” he said ecstatically. “Formidable!” He waved vigorously.
“Must you?” said Henriette grimly.
Guy pulled at her sleeve, nodding energetically towards Gilles’s box.
“I’ll kill you!” she hissed. She turned her head, smiled slightly, raised her hand slightly, and looked away again.
Guy leaned back in his seat sniggering helplessly. “He’s wondering what the Hell we’re doing together!” he gasped.
“Good.”
“Very good!” he gasped.
In the box Linnet had said as the handsome young man waved from the stalls: “Is that someone you know, Gilles?”
Gilles had been hoping she hadn’t caught sight of the gesture, in which case he would have pretended he hadn’t seen the pair. “Yes,” he said, raising his hand slightly and nodding at Guy. “It’s Guy. Mathieu and Pauline’s eldest.”
“Oh.” Linnet smiled timidly as the young man continued to wave. “He’s with that lady, I think.”
He was obviously with that lady, as the seats to right and left of the pair were empty. “Yes,” agreed Gilles grimly.
“She’s seen you,” she reported.
“Yes,” he agreed, acknowledging Henriette’s gesture. “So she has.”
There was a short silence. “Is she a cousin or something?”
“What? Well, no, darling. Just someone I know slightly. I wasn’t aware that Guy knew her well enough to escort her to the opera,” he added.
“She looks a lot older than him.”
“En effet.”
“Is she a friend of Pauline’s?”
“I believe Pauline does know her, yes. I don’t know whether I’d call her a friend.”
“Oh,” said Linnet uncertainly.
“Possibly she had a spare ticket,” he suggested desperately.
She smiled. “That’ll be it!”
Gilles sent up a silent prayer that his fiancée’s limited film-going experience didn’t extend to The Graduate. It was apparently answered, as she didn’t mention Mrs Robinson, but said: “She looks very smart. Her dress is a bit like mine, isn’t it? I wonder if she got it at that nice little shop Marie-Claire took me to.”
Henriette didn’t shop at the sort of nice little boutique his daughter favoured; and Linnet’s dress, in Gilles’s terms, had cost practically nothing. “No,” he said definitely without thinking.
“Why not?” she asked, looking puzzled.
“Eugh... Well, that wasn’t a shop for middle-aged ladies, was it?” he said desperately.
“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” Linnet agreed comfortably. “He’s good-looking, isn’t he? A bit like Fabien, I think. Not like Jean-Paul.”
“Hein? Oh. Yes, I suppose he and Fabien are a little alike. –Facially,” he ended on a grim note.
“Oui...” Linnet looked dreamily round the opera house. “It’s super, isn’t it? I’m glad we came again.”
“Hein? Oh, to L’Opéra!” he said with a laugh. “Oui, oui: once one gets used to the ceiling.”
“I really like it, it’s kind of magical. –The opera’s nice, too.”
“But you liked the ballet last week better,” he murmured.
“Well... I am enjoying it. It’s exciting, isn’t it? It seemed strange at first, when they all sang. Only you get used to it, don’t you? Only they don’t all exactly look the part,” said Linnet on a sad note.
“No. Well, that is the big drawback, with opera. Sometimes the voices are magnificent but the bodies don’t match! Perhaps I shouldn’t have started you out with Otello... I’ll find out when they’re doing a Mozart one. And we could always pop up to Salzburg or Vienna. And the Drottningholm Theatre puts on exquisite Mozart. We could go up to Sweden this summer, perhaps: there’s sure to be something on.”
“Sweden?” said Linnet dazedly.
“Well, yes, that’s where it is.” Gilles explained further. She wanted to know how far it was, so he told her, approximately.
“Oh: that’s not so far, then!” she said in relief. “Europe’s pretty small, really, isn’t it?”
He was glad she thought so.
Linnet began to read her programme in detail. He sank back into his seat. Merde! Why did the bloody woman have to be here tonight? And what the Hell was she doing with Guy, of all people? ...Could she have planned it, in order to embarrass him? But how could she have got to know he’d be here tonight? Wait: could Guy have found out?
Eventually he said: “Linnet—”
“Mm?”
“Did you— Eugh... Did you mention to anyone that we’d be coming here tonight, darling?”
Linnet stared at him blankly. “Um… The waiter who brought us the coffee this morning. He said did we have anything exciting planned for today, and I—”
“Not at the hotel, mignonne,” he said, biting his lip. “Did you—did you mention it to Marie-Claire or Fabien, for instance? Or Jean-Paul?”
“I haven’t seen Jean-Paul for ages. Not since Roma’s birthday party. And when we had lunch with Fabien the other day, I don’t think either of us mentioned the opera.”
“No. And Marie-Claire?”
“Um... I think I told her and Rose before we left that you said we’d be going to Othello. Yes, that’s right, I did, and Rose thought I meant the play. Why do you want to know?”
“Hein? Oh—no reason, just an idle thought...” He lapsed into frowning silence. Linnet returned to her programme.
Finally he said: “Darling: that lady with Guy—”
“His mother’s friend: yes,” said Linnet placidly.
Swallowing, Gilles said: “Eugh—ouais. Did you meet her at the Collections when you were with Isabelle, mignonne?”
“Well... Most of the ladies we saw were flashier than her.” Linnet looked towards her cautiously but the lady wasn’t looking their way, so she stared hard and said: “She does seem sort of familiar. Only I couldn’t swear to it we saw her.”
“No. You didn’t speak, then?”
“Um, I think she might be one of the ladies that Isabelle waved to. Only she waved to a lot of ladies.”
“Of course. But you definitely didn’t speak to her?”
“I can’t be definite, Gilles. I said hullo to an awful lot of ladies. But I’m almost sure.” She looked at him anxiously. “I definitely haven’t seen him before. I mean, if she was at the Collections, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t with him. Are you afraid he might be having a thing with her?”
Twitching slightly, he replied: “I suppose it’s not impossible. Better not mention to Pauline we saw them, just in case; okay?”
“Okay.” Linnet nodded obediently and returned to her programme.
Gilles opened his but didn’t take in a word of it. It must just be an unpleasant coincidence that she’d chosen this night to see Otello. Soit. But why in blazes were the two of them together? He couldn’t see how Henriette Verdeuil could possibly make mischief between him and Linnet, but he had a fair idea, after his last unpleasant interview with her, that she’d do so if she could. And Guy, of course, had a fair few reasons for wanting to make mischief...
Back in the fauteuils Henriette had hesitated for a while. But their neighbours still didn’t return, so she said in a very low voice: “Guy, you weren’t thinking of Ari and—and his nastier friends, in the context of wanting to get rid of la petite dame, were you?”
Guy’s jaw dropped and for once his response was perfectly genuine. “No!” he gasped.
“That’s just as well,” said Henriette grimly. “He’s the sort of person who likes to get something on people that he can use against them. He might never use it, but you’d never know when he was going to,” she clarified grimly.
“Ouais,” he said faintly. “...Could he?” he added weakly.
“He knows people who’d remove her without giving the matter two seconds’ thought, yes. Only one fine morning you’d wake up to find that he had proof you were implicated.”
Guy made a face. “I’ve got that—yes.”
People were drifting back to their seats. Henriette said in a low voice: “So just don’t contemplate the drastic solution.” And returned to her programme.
“Non,” he agreed faintly. Thinking: Mon Dieu, why did I ever mention... And that it was just as well that Henriette Verdeuil herself had no further hopes of becoming Madame la Comtesse de Bellecourt. Because if she had had, he frankly wouldn’t have given much for la petite dame’s chances of surviving until the wedding.
The opera recommenced but Guy didn’t hear much of it. He was regretting sourly that he’d ever opened his stupid great mouth. He’d only asked after Ari in order to needle the cow. What an imbecile! ...Could he possibly warn Gilles that the bitch felt bitter enough towards him for the thought of having his petite dame bumped off to have actually entered her head? Guy chewed his lip. Not actually, no. It’d take more guts than he’d got. Besides, if it had entered her head it had evidently done so only to be almost instantly dismissed, thank God! He glanced sideways at her, very cautiously. He’d always known she was a hard bitch, but... What in God’s name had ever possessed Gilles to get mixed up with her?
Henriette was relieved that Guy hadn’t come out with her in order to get hold of Ari Karakoulakis and his underworld contacts. She admitted sourly to herself that if she could have removed bloody Gilles’s petite dame from the face of the earth with a snap of her fingers she’d have done it without a second’s hesitation. To spite the bastard. But implicate herself in something shady that Ari Karakoulakis knew about? Non, merci. Pas si bête! She wouldn’t have minded taking up with Ari again but she was hard-headed enough to realize that the affaire on Guadeloupe had been nothing but a short-lived fling. Ari spent a lot of time in Paris and had fingers in many business pies, and they had mutual acquaintances, some of them dating from the days of her marriage, so she did occasionally bump into him. But he hadn’t tried to renew the relationship, and Henriette knew better than to make the first move with a man of his type. She’d been disappointed, but resigned.
Now she reflected that it was just as well. She sat back and concentrated on the opera.
Guy wouldn’t have minded encountering Gilles’s pretty little lady face-to-face but during the second interval he was still too stunned by Henriette’s cold-blooded acceptance of the notion of getting rid of Linnet to do anything about it. He looked for them afterwards but couldn’t see them. Tant pis, he’d meet her at La Rance in a few days’ time. By now he frankly couldn’t wait to dump Henriette, the bitch gave him the horrors. However, he successfully disguised this feeling and they had a pleasant enough meal.
Henriette had wondered if he wanted to sleep with her after all, but when they reached her building, although he got out of the taxi and made sure the main door was opened to her ring, he didn’t come up with her. She’d come to the conclusion during the evening that he was a silly, loose-talking and dangerous young man: the more dangerous, not the less, for the loose talk. She wouldn’t have encouraged him on a permanent basis but she certainly wouldn’t have minded a one-night stand. Tant pis, she thought with a mental shrug as he hurried back to the taxi. Safer not to get involved with that sort of fool, really. Nevertheless her blood pounded in a mixture of desire and frustration as the lift took her slowly up to her floor. He was pretty enough: she really wouldn’t have minded... Tant pis, she thought again.
Gilles really did have a fair amount of business to see to, so Linnet was left pretty much to her own devices during their last few days in Paris.
She had already been with Marie-Claire for several fittings for the dress that Roma had ordered for her for the party, and on those days had let Marie-Claire take her to the sorts of things that she enjoyed herself: the boutiques and the grandes surfaces and a with-it little place for lunch; and to the sorts of things that Marie-Claire thought Linnet, as a foreigner, ought to enjoy: the Sacré Coeur, which Linnet thought was pretty from a distance but horribly saccharine close up, the flower market just by métro Cité, and the Tour Eiffel, which Linnet refused, shuddering, to go up. Marie-Claire had no head for heights, either, so she was relieved that her guest didn’t want to. They sat down in a café and Marie-Claire looked up her métro guide because they were quite close, really, as the crow flew, to the Bon Marché, which Linnet mustn’t miss. Look, Linnet, it was easy: tu prends le métro…
When they got there it was yet another grande surface but Linnet didn’t mind, it was warm. Marie-Claire headed eagerly for the bedding and Linnet accompanied her obediently, not realizing that her guide’s kind intention was to help her choose linen for the new flat and that she was disappointing her horribly by not buying any.
Marie-Claire, however, had now gone down to La Rance to help Roma and Rose. Linnet didn’t like to ring Annie just out of the blue, though she’d enjoyed the day with her when they went on the tour of les égouts more than she had any of the things she’d done with-Marie-Claire, and in fact had expatiated on these engineering marvels for some time to the stunned but amused Gilles that evening.
Fabien would have been only too happy to dawdle round Paris with her doing anything she wanted to, Linnet knew, but she also knew that both Gilles and Fabien’s father considered he wasted far too much of his time as it was, so she didn’t like to take him away from his swot.
The day after the opera she spent quietly revisiting Notre Dame and exploring the two islands in the Seine. Gilles had already taken her to the cathedral but Linnet had decided she wanted to go again so as to enjoy it peacefully at her own pace.
She was looking through her Guide Michelin the next day after Gilles had gone off to the office, trying to decide what to do, when Jean-Paul rang. Would she like to meet him for lunch? Linnet agreed she would. Jean-Paul explained rapidly where the place was: did she know the Rue St André? –No. –Oh. But she knew the Boule’ Mich’, okay? Tu prends le métro… Linnet’s heart sank. ...And it was the first—no, the second couscous place!
Desperately Linnet said she couldn’t possibly, she couldn’t manage the métro at all, she’d never done it on her own. Jean-Paul thought it over. Okay: how about this: she could take a taxi— No, wait: was it sens unique? He couldn’t remember. If it was, she’d have to come from the other end, so of course the couscous place would be... Linnet said desperately she’d never find it. Not even if Jeannot drove her, she added desperately. Jean-Paul had forgotten about Jeannot: he brightened. Oh, well, in that case, it was easy! Linnet’s heart sank again but it was all right, all he was proposing was that, since he had to meet someone on business connected with his paper at an office just off the Boulevard St Germain, old Jeannot could pick her up, then come and collect him!
Even though this would entail ringing Jeannot and telling him she would need him today in spite of having told him half an hour ago that she wouldn’t, and even though she found it almost impossible to understand his strong Parisian accent over the phone, Linnet brightened. Okay: d’ac’!
Having laboriously found a section of the Guide Michelin which seemed to have the roads he’d mentioned—well, one end of what might be the Rue St André, and definitely the Boulevard St Michel if that was what he’d meant when he was trying to describe the whereabouts of the couscous restaurant, she realized that the place was in the Latin Quarter: with relief she decided she could wear her sight-seeing gear. And duly got into it.
The weather was still freezing but Linnet had more or less got the trick of dressing for it: you wore very heavy outer clothes and bundled yourself up well, but underneath only lightish winter things, as it was always warm inside. It had taken her a while to get used to this phenomenon: even though the South Australian winters were not by any means as cold as the Paris ones, it was seldom warm in winter in the Adelaide homes she was used to. So for sight-seeing Linnet bundled herself up in the expensive brown mink that Giles had bought her with its matching Russian-look hat and added a pale green fake mohair fuzzy muffler with matching mittens that had been des soldes de l’entrée at the Bon Marché and that Gilles didn’t realize she possessed and that Marie-Claire had assumed she was buying for le ski. Underneath she wore a pair of heavy-duty jeans that she had got at a real bargain price on the day she spent with Annie—on Annie’s advice, and that Gilles didn’t know she possessed—and a lightweight, pale grey fine-knit cashmere sweater that had come from upstairs at Les Galeries Lafayette and that both Gilles and Marie-Claire approved of.
The jeans were a little loose round the waist, so she had very bravely, all by herself, bought a belt for them from a shop on the Grands Boulevards. The shop had, given its geographical location, not been an exclusive one, but nevertheless Linnet had found its prices shocking, so she’d chosen the cheapest belt that looked as if it would hold the jeans up. It had had to be a solid belt, as the jeans were pretty solid, and she’d had experience of lightweight plastic belts that cracked and split before you’d barely had them a year. The one she chose was heavy leather in a pale tan, with a wide strip of bright pink plastic lattice-work woven into its entire length. The buckle was heavy antiqued silver metal in the shape of intertwined snakes. It was probably meant to be le look Western, but for Linnet this was immaterial, and the deciding points in its favour, besides its obvious strength, were its actually having a hole in it at the appropriate place for her slender waist and its price. Also the girl in the shop had been very eager to sell her something: that had been a factor, too.
With the jeans she wore her cowboy boots. She now possessed several other pairs of smarter boots. But as she’d confessed to Annie that they weren’t very warm or very comfortable to walk in for long, Annie, with a scornful snort, had taken her to the place where she got her own boots. A fair distance from les égouts, necessitating three changes on the métro and the consequent racing down long, strange underground corridors, but Linnet was gradually getting used to this peculiar aspect of Parisian life. Annie’s consumerism might have been of a different quality to Marie-Claire’s but, as Linnet was discovering, it was equally earnest, and she was forced to try on every boot in the shop that was her size. Annie was all for a heavy black pair but Linnet found a pair with only very moderate heels much more comfortable. They were a rich tan, with considerable tooling and chasing, and neither the currently In short style, which Annie herself was wearing, or the longer look which, whether or not it was terribly In, was popular with more elegant ladies in the cold European winters. Annie approved of the heavy buckled strap across the front of the ankle and decided that though she herself didn’t go for the le look Cowboy, Linnet could have them. She could wear her jeans either tucked in or over them, she pointed out pleasedly. Linnet agreed. The boots cost only a fraction of what she’d been forced to throw away on the long ones by Marie-Claire and Isabelle, so she bought them.
Annie then dragged her to a nearby “record barn” where Linnet merely looked in bewilderment at the thousands of glossily packaged tapes, CDs and LPs displayed on what looked like recycled packing-cases in what really did look like an undecorated barn, or perhaps an old warehouse, and where Annie proceeded to spend six times what Linnet’s new boots had cost on a mixed collection of cult pop, genuine Senegalese and Rasta music, explaining in reference to the latter that Zizi’s cousins from Guadeloupe could get her genuine West Indian music that was much better. Linnet didn’t ask why she was spending so much on this, then: she didn’t like to criticize Annie’s behaviour and besides, hers was not a critical nature.
Even though they only had Jean-Paul’s directions to rely on, the wonderful Jeannot found the address of Jean-Paul’s friend’s office without difficulty. He parked the big black Citroën right outside, though there was a sign there telling him not to, and, adjuring Mademoiselle Linnette to speak only English if a flic came along, disappeared up the dark little staircase just inside this door. After five agonising minutes during which Linnet looked for cops who didn’t eventuate, Jean-Paul came clattering down the stairs, grinning. Could Linnet wait for him round the corner in that bar? The office was a bit cramped and she’d be bored, otherwise he’d say come up.
Meekly Linnet agreed to wait for him. Jeannot drove her round the corner, though it was only a step, parked illegally right outside the bar, made sure she had some money in her purse, ordered her to ring him when she wanted to come home and not to let Jean-Paul put her on the métro alone, ordered her to go inside the bar, it was too cold to sit outside today, and let her out. He waited until she’d gone in and drew straight out into the snarl of traffic.
It wasn’t quite twelve: the bar, which was quite big, was not nearly full. Linnet found a table in the window and sank limply onto a chair. She knew now that you could order a real orange juice in Paris and actually get freshly squeezed juice—Gilles not having taken her to the sort of place where they only had it en bouteille—so she ordered that. When it came she stirred both packets of sugar into it, she felt she needed it. After that she looked timidly round the bar, registering that it seemed modern and smart and that most of the clientèle looked likewise, and not registering that many of the clients were in extremely trendy gear and that, although the little side street where Jean-Paul was doing business was grimy and down-at-heel, she was now in one of the more up-market venues of the Boulevard St Germain itself.
The bar, as she now expected, was warm, and Linnet had undone her coat when she sat down. After a little she took her hat off and placed it on the table with the mittens, and slipped the coat off her shoulders, draping it on the back of her chair.
Soon two young women came and sat at the next table. They were both in brown, which Marie-Claire had explained was very In this winter, though Linnet certainly hadn’t noticed much of it on the streets. One was tall and wore her hair scraped right back under a brown fur pillbox. Her coat, in a milk-chocolate shade, was large and loose with an enormous casually draped scarf of the same material—or perhaps it was a collar, but it looked more like a scarf—which stood up stiffly beneath her chin. Linnet couldn’t help thinking that if she herself owned a coat like that she’d inevitably spill coffee or juice or something on the upstanding scarf (or collar), but this lady didn’t look as if she’d ever do that. She had darker brown boots, long ones, and long brown leather gloves, which she removed as Linnet watched. Her friend was shorter, and in a lighter brown: almost a tan but not quite. Her hat was like a man’s felt hat but much, much smarter than the awful thing Annie wore. Linnet thought that perhaps this second lady had bought what she was wearing as an outfit, because the coat, which had square shoulders and a draped piece that hung down the back sort of like a wide scarf, you couldn’t have called it a collar, with one very big dark brown button at the front and one on each cuff, was exactly the same shade as her slacks and hat. These ladies both ordered coffee and began to talk about interior decorating. Linnet listened with interest. After a little while she decided that that was what they were: interior decorators. Both of these lady interior decorators were extremely smart but to Linnet’s eye both of the outfits looked very uncomfortable to wear. She waited eagerly to see if they’d order something to eat and if so whether the collared lady would undo her coat. And how: there were no visible buttons and Linnet couldn’t figure out how the collar (or scarf) was fixed on.
She was meditating on this engineering puzzle and listening to the two ladies pull someone else’s design for a bedroom to pieces when a lady in a black fur coat came up to her table and said: “Pardonnez-moi, mais—”
Linnet looked up with a certain resignation, removing her hat and mittens from the table.
Henriette Verdeuil’s lamp had been delivered and she had been quite pleased with it. Though somehow it made the salon seem shabby. Of course what Guy de Bellecourt had said about her décor had been a piece of mere cheek, but— Well, she had to buy a wedding present for a niece, and perhaps she could at least look at furnishing fabrics while she did so. So Henriette had returned to the Boulevard St Germain and the interior design shops on it and off it. She did not normally lunch until around two, but it was such a cold day that she’d decided on a coffee. Not at that dump where she’d bumped into Guy: somewhere nice. Henriette had headed for somewhere nice. She’d been flabbergasted to see Gilles de Bellecourt’s petite dame sitting in its window.
At first she’d thought it must be her imagination, just a chance resemblance. So she’d walked past and then walked back, more slowly. It was her, all right, and the coat slung over the back of the chair so casually was the superb natural mink the whey-faced little bitch had had with her at the Armani showing. Should she go in, or not? The girl was alone, and there was no sign of Gilles—and in any case he didn’t normally lunch at twelve. Besides, who cared if he did turn up! In fact, so much the better if he did: it would give the bastard a nasty jolt to see his fiancée and his former mistress with their heads together! Henriette went in.
Linnet had been so busy concentrating on the lady interior decorators that she hadn’t noticed the lady in the black fur coat pass the window three times. She smiled politely as she removed her things from the table.
But the lady in the black fur coat didn’t say: “But may I join you?” or ‘‘But is this seat free?”; she said: ‘‘But aren’t you Gilles de Bellecourt’s petite dame— I’m so sorry, I mean his fiancée!” she corrected herself hurriedly with a laugh. “Mlle—eugh—Müller, isn’t it?”
“Bonjour, madame,” said Linnet in a tiny voice, turning scarlet.
Henriette didn’t introduce herself, even though she’d have bet every piece of jewellery she owned that Gilles wouldn’t have breathed a word about her to the girl. She said: “We saw each other at the opera the other night, didn’t we?”
“Oui,” said Linnet faintly, still scarlet at hearing this smart, middle-aged Parisian lady whom she didn’t know at all casually using Gilles’s pet-name for her and his Adélaïde, that she’d thought only the family and his dear old servants knew of.
“May I?” said Henriette with a charming smile, indicating a spare chair.
“Oh! Yes, please sit down!” gasped Linnet.
Henriette sat down, still smiling.
Linnet couldn’t think of anything to say. If she said, so the lady knew Guy, or how was Guy, or something, the lady would think that she thought she was having a thing with him, and what if she wasn’t? Or, worse, what if she was? Help!
Henriette put an expectant look on her face and let the silence last long enough for the girl to become visibly uncomfortable at being unable to think of anything appropriate with which to break it, before she allowed herself to say politely: “How did you enjoy the opera?”
“Oh! I thought it was wonderful!” she gasped.
“Indeed? I was disappointed in the Otello. Perhaps he wasn’t in good voice.”
“I don’t know... It was the first opera I’d been to,” said Linnet shyly.
Henriette allowed her brows to rise very slightly. “Really?” She paused. “Gilles is very fond of opera,” she said coolly.
“Oui, je sais,” gulped Linnet, turning scarlet all over again.
At this point the waiter came up and unfortunately broke the tension. Henriette ordered coffee and a Cognac and asked the girl if she’d like anything more. Linnet refused politely.
When the waiter had gone Henriette let the silence develop again. Then she said: “He’s keeping you waiting, is he? That’s not very like Gilles, he’s usually so punctual.” Without waiting for a reply she added, glancing at the jeans and the cowboy boots: “I gather it’s not the Tour d’Argent today!”
“What?” stumbled Linnet, not knowing which part of this speech to respond to first.
“Don’t tell me he hasn’t taken you there yet!” said Henriette with a high-pitched tinkle of laughter.
“Non—eugh—what is it?” she gasped.
“O, là, là!” said Henriette with a laugh. “It’s one of our best restaurants, my dear: some would claim, the best. I thought surely Gilles—” She broke off, with a little comical grimace and shrug.
“We have been to quite a lot of restaurants,” said Linnet hoarsely. “I can’t remember their names.”
Henriette gave the tinkle of laughter again. “Naughty you! He’s so particular about where he eats, too—I don’t know how you dare!”
Linnet swallowed. “Yes,” she said hoarsely: “he—he won’t eat at the restaurant in the hotel.”
“What: the George V?” she said, laughing incredulously.
Gulping and scarlet, Linnet explained where they were staying. Adding as the lady’s eyebrows rose that Gilles said it was Americanized.
“Mais oui! Why on earth did he choose it?”
Linnet’s hands twisted the hat in her lap. “I—I don’t know; he—he wanted to be anonymous!” she gasped.
Henriette responded to this one in quite genuine blank amazement: “He what?”
Linnet swallowed. “He wanted to be anonymous.”
“I hardly think the curious would have beaten a path to his usual suite at the George V merely because the announcement of your engagement was in the paper, my dear,” she drawled.
“No,” gulped Linnet.
Henriette waited while the waiter deposited her order. “And the affair of the tontine is not, I believe, such general knowledge that the media would have got hold of it?” She watched with satisfaction as the girl’s cheeks turned puce. She sipped the brandy. “Though of course it’s known in certain circles,” she murmured. “We were glad to see the ULR shares weren’t too badly affected at the Bourse.”
“Oui,” she whispered.
There was a short silence. Henriette sipped her Cognac again, and then stirred sugar into her coffee. She tasted it cautiously. “My dear, don’t twist those really splendid skins like that, I beg you,” she said, as Linnet continued to torture the fur hat.
“What? Oh!” she gasped, releasing it.
Henriette put her cup down and reached over languidly. “May I?” She held the hat up critically. “Quite superb,” she said with a little sigh. “He always did have exquisite taste, of course.”
At this a spurt of anger overtook Linnet. How did the lady know that she hadn’t chosen it herself? And why was she being so deliberately horrid? It was obvious now, even to her, that she was. Was she cross because Gilles and her had seen her with Guy at the opera? But it was a public place, after all. And she hadn’t seemed at all perturbed at the time. She looked at her resentfully but was incapable of making any sort of retort.
Henriette turned the hat slowly on her hand. “Oui,” she murmured finally. She laid it back on Linnet’s knees and said with a little laugh: “Delicious with the student look, my dear! How do you dare? Wasn’t he rabid when he saw you wearing it—not to mention that utterly delicious coat we were all envying you at the Armani showing—with your jeans and cowboy boots?”
Tears sprang to Linnet’s eyes. “I was only wearing it because it was warm,” she whispered.
“I love it!” said Henriette ecstatically, throwing her head back with a crow of laughter. “Poor dear Gilles! What’s the expression: damned with faint praise? My dear, I never heard a more superb throwaway line! Three million francs worth of the finest natural mink, and you wear it because it’s warm!”
“Three million— It couldn’t have been that much!” she gasped in horror.
Henriette lifted a fold of the coat’s skirt delicately. “Exquisite,” she murmured. “Well, I’m glad to know he had the tact not to let you know what it set him back. It’s so boring when a man insists on having his generosity fully understood, isn’t it? But I would say three million—yes.”
“It absolutely couldn’t have been,” said Linnet determinedly. “Not a coat.”
Henriette merely laughed lightly and sipped her coffee.
Linnet was silent, working out how much three million French francs was in Australian dollars. No: he couldn’t have: not on a coat! She found she was twisting the hat again; flushing, she put her left hand on the table out of harm’s way and blindly picked up her glass with the right hand. She drained the sugary remains of the orange juice and set it down again unsteadily.
“Don’t worry about it, my dear,” said the lady.
Linnet looked at her dazedly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t worry about it, my dear. After all, what’s a sum like that to a man with the Bellecourt family wealth? And I see,” she murmured, looking at the big ring on the hand that was on the table, “that he’s given you the Bellecourt marquise emerald to wear. You must allow him,” she added, suddenly inspired, “to express some appreciation for the fact that you’re bringing the tontine inheritance back into the family!”
Linnet’s face flamed; her eyes filled with tears again.
Smiling, Henriette gave the tiniest of shrugs. “O, là! But why take it seriously? If you’re so sure of him that you can wear that glorious emerald that most of us have never even seen out of its box with your cowboy outfit and those dear little kiddy’s ski mittens—!” She laughed.
“I’m not even meeting him!” cried Linnet desperately. “He hasn’t even seen these jeans!”
Henriette broke down in a spluttering fit. “I see!” she gasped.
“It isn’t like that!” cried Linnet.
“My dear Mlle Müller, of course it isn’t like that; it’s never like that, is it? It certainly wasn’t like that between me and Gilles’s young nephew at the opera the other night! Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word! Though I must admit that it’ll be hard not to: wearing his mink and his priceless emerald with jeans to an assignation, when the ink’s hardly dry on the marriage settlement!” She saw that that was a hit: the girl suddenly looked as if she was going to faint. “You naughty little thing!” she crowed. “Delightful! Poor dear Gilles! Well, he’s had it all his own way for far too long. I’m glad to see he’s met his match: someone who’s capable of giving him the run-around for a change! –Don’t look so murderous, my dear: I’ll be as silent as the grave! And I quite understand: I’m a woman, too, you know. Not fun to be tied up to a man twice one’s age, really, is it?”
She drained her brandy and stood up. “But if I might breathe a word of warning, my dear: be careful. He’s got a temper. And the Bellecourts are known for holding to what’s theirs.” She eyed her mockingly and drew on her black leather gloves.
“Bonjour, Mme Verdeuil,” said a grim young voice.
Henriette turned her head swiftly. “Ah, mais dis-donc! Jean-Paul, n’est-ce pas? Mes félicitations, ma chère Mlle Müller: he’s got those ice-blue eyes of the better-looking Bellecourt men! Ciao! –Ciao, mon petit,” she added to the tight-lipped Jean-Paul. She gave them an airy little wave and departed, smiling.
“Linnet, what in God’s name were you doing talking to her?” croaked Jean-Paul, sinking numbly onto the chair she’d vacated.
“She—she just came up to me and—and she said awful things!” said Linnet through trembling lips.
“I just bet she did!” he said with feeling.
“She—she was horrible about me and Gilles and—and she said he spent three million francs on this coat!” she burst out.
“Hein? Eugh—well, perhaps he did; I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“She went on and on about it,” said Linnet in a bewildered voice.
“Jealous,” diagnosed Jean-Paul before he could stop himself.
“But she had a beautiful coat of her own!” she protested.
“Hein? –Merde,” he muttered. “Look, she’s one of those society bitches that—that can’t bear to see anyone prettier or younger than them being happy.” He eyed her uneasily. Oncle Gilles couldn’t have told her about his thing with Mme Verdeuil, then. Not that you could blame him all that much for keeping quiet about it. But on the other hand, he should have known there was a chance that Linnet would bump into the cow, and he should certainly have known that if that happened, a bitch like Henriette Verdeuil would have a go at the poor little thing.
“Oh,” said Linnet, swallowing.
“Forget it,” he advised.
“Oui, mais... She said things... She said everybody knows, and I thought that—that nobody knew but us! The—the family,” said Linnet, lips trembling again.
Silently cursing his Oncle Gilles for a fuck-witted blabbermouth, Jean-Paul replied in a strangled voice: “Ouais... Well, things get about, tu sais.”
“How could she know about Adélaïde?” said Linnet, tears starting to her eyes again.”
“Hein? Oh! The picture! Well, I dare say it’s quite well known. I mean, to people who know about art, and so forth,” he said uneasily, hoping she wouldn’t ask him what Henriette Verdeuil was supposed to know about the obscurer portrait painters of the Second Empire.
“Oui, mais—mais…” Linnet’s hands trembled. She looked at him plaintively.
“The world’s full of cows like her. You mustn’t let them get to you.”
“But Jean-Paul, she said things about the tontine and the marriage settlement that—that no-one but me and Gilles could possibly have known!”
Mon Dieu, thought Jean-Paul numbly. Surely the fool couldn’t still be seeing her? No: Pop had said they’d definitely broken up, there’d been an almighty dust-up. It must be true, because Maman had said not to say all that in front of “the boys” but by then it had been too late.
“The lawyers must know,” he said quickly. “Some clerk or something must have been gossiping.”
“I suppose so...” Linnet was now wondering how much Guy de Bellecourt might know of the family affairs and whether perhaps Mme Whatever-her-name-was had got her information off him. Which would indicate that they were having a thing. She thought she’d better not mention it to Guy’s brother in case it shocked him, so she didn’t. “Only I don’t see how she could know that he calls me la petite dame, too!” she burst out.
Merde! thought Jean-Paul. Desperately he offered: “Everybody knows that. Nothing in it. I mean, all the servants know, so probably—no, undoubtedly—the whole of Touques le Minard does; probably all the lawyers and so forth, too.”
“I don’t think the lawyers could... The whole family knows, do they?” she said on a plaintive note.
“Oui, oui. Everybody thinks it’s sweet,” he assured her hastily.
“Ouais…” said Linnet vaguely. That was it, then: the horrid lady must have got it from Jean-Paul’s brother.
“Like a coffee or anything?” he asked as the waiter came up.
“No; I had an orange juice, thanks.”
“Okay, then. –Nothing else, thanks,” he said to the waiter. “Come on, Linnet, shall we go?”
“Jean-Paul, do you know about the marriage settlement?”
“Eugh... I know that you and Oncle Gilles have signed papers and stuff, yes—bien sûr. C’est normal, non?”
“Oh,” said Linnet with a sigh. “I suppose everybody knows.”
“Bound to!” he said breezily, getting up. “Come on: grab your gloves.”
She stood up, replaced her hat, put her coat back on, settled her scarf and picked up her mittens. “Jean-Paul,” she said, going very red: “Do you think I look silly?”
“Comment? No, I think you look great!” he said, grinning, realising that the Verdeuil bitch must have had a go at her about her clothes, too. “I like those boots.”
“Oh—these. Annie took me to a shop that just sells boots.”
He nodded, smiling. “Ready? Do your coat up, it’s freezing out.”
Linnet put the mittens down and fumbled for the coat’s fasteners. “I meant do I look silly with—with this coat and—and my jeans?”
“No,” he said blankly. “Look, if that bitch said anything about how you look, forget it. –She looks,” he added, suddenly inspired, “like a walking sofa: all tightly-stuffed upholstery!” He thumped his own slender chest, grinning.
Linnet choked. “Oui, t’as raison!” she gasped.
“Ouais. So forget it.”
She did the coat up slowly. “Do you think Gilles would be cross if he knew I was wearing this good coat with my jeans?”
Ouch! Help! thought Jean-Paul. Evidently the bitch had known just which buttons to press. “No, I think he’d be glad you’d worn something warm: it’s freezing today.”
“It is the warmest thing I’ve got,” she allowed, nodding.
“Of course,” he said, handing her the mittens. “Come on, we’ll walk—it isn’t far.”
Linnet followed him obediently, but outside on the pavement she said in a small voice: “So you don’t think these ski mittens and this scarf look silly with my coat?”
Jean-Paul looked at her, smiling. The sweet little oval face peeped at him out of a fuzz of pale green fluff and soft brown fur. Linnet, of course, was far too modest to realize that few males would have found this picture anything but entirely desirable.
“You look great. And I suppose he bought you the coat to wear, didn’t he?”
“That’s what he said,” she agreed.
Jean-Paul sagged slightly. Phew! “There you are, then,” he said, taking her arm. “Come on: this way!”
He set off towards the corner of the Boulevard St Michel at a terrific pace. Linnet scrambled along beside him. Before very long she was pink-faced, breathless, and laughing. Jean-Paul was very relieved and assumed happily that she’d forgotten all about the unfortunate encounter with the Verdeuil bitch.
But Linnet hadn’t forgotten. Although she’d decided that the horrid sofa-lady must have got most of her information about her and Gilles from Guy, the woman’s spite had sown quite a few seeds of doubt in her mind. She didn’t really believe that Gilles was marrying her in order to salvage some of the tontine inheritance. Only—he was so much older than her, and sophisticated and experienced... It was very hard to believe that he wanted to marry her for herself alone, or even for herself and her resemblance to his petite dame en gris.
When she was with him again that evening it was very easy to have perfect faith in him, and she felt an enormous relief, and only said that Jean-Paul had taken her to a couscous place for lunch, and it had been fun and the food had been very interesting and most unusual, and they’d played real Arab music.
But next day, when he had to go off on business again even though it was their very last day together in Paris, the faith waned a bit, and the doubts crept back. Though she tried very, very hard not to let them.
It was more than likely that Henriette Verdeuil wouldn’t have bothered to drip her poison in Linnet’s ear had it not been for the encounter with Guy. She had felt bitter but resigned over Gilles’s breaking up with her. She’d known for some time, after all, that the affaire was winding down, even if she hadn’t been quite ready to admit as much. And if he wanted a girl who could give him a son—well, so be it. But somehow actually seeing him at the opera, all uxorious attentiveness to the slim, pretty little thing in the box, in combination with Guy’s needling and with his reminding her that she didn’t have a hope with Ari... There was also the sour thought, hovering at the back of her consciousness, and which to do her justice she didn’t allow herself to dwell on, that Ari Karakoulakis could have got rid of Linnet if she’d been willing to take the risk of giving him a hold over her. These feelings of sourness, disappointment and rejection had been reinforced by Guy’s not having come up to scratch after the opera. Henriette hadn’t admitted it to herself, but underneath the immediate sexual frustration she’d felt old and unwanted.
She would not have gone out of her way to seek the girl out; but when she’d seen her in the window on the Boulevard St Germain a wave of bitter jealousy had swamped her. The glorious mink that she’d envied at the Armani showing and the Bellecourt emerald on the slender little hand had only reinforced this feeling.
The encounter had done her good: Henriette treated herself to a nice lunch and returned home from her day on the Boulevard St Germain feeling very pleased with herself.
“Well, did you enjoy Paris, then?” said Gilles with a smile as they headed north.
“Oui,” agreed Linnet in a small voice. “I’m glad to be going home, though.”
He laughed pleasedly, very glad she thought of La Rance as home.
“Gilles...” she said after a while.
“Ouais?” he murmured, his eyes on the traffic.
“You don’t mind me wearing my jeans and—and cowboy boots with my fur coat, do you?” she said in a small voice,
“Hein? Oh!” he said with a laugh. He touched her denim knee gently. “No, of course not, darling. You look very sweet. Just right for the country. –Oh, look!” he said with a laugh as he drew out and passed a lumbering van. “Tu vois? One of our vans!”
“Oui,” said Linnet faintly, looking at the ULR logo. “Tricots ULR: knitted fabrics.”
“C’est ça. –Mathieu always has tickets for the prêt-à-porter showings, as head of that division: if you’d like to go, mignonne, remind me nearer the time. March, okay?”
“Rose might like to,” said Linnet dubiously. “—So it is all right to wear the mink coat with my jeans and boots, then?”
“Hein? Oui, oui, ma mie!” he said, laughing. “It wouldn’t do for town wear, bien entendu.”
“Non,” said Linnet in a hollow voice. “Not for town wear, of course.”
Gilles drove on, smiling. Funny little thing! he thought, glancing at the denim knees with affection.
The quailing Linnet shrank into the brown mink. The horrible sofa-lady had been right. Help.
Next chapter:
https://frazerinheritance1-adelaidesdaughters.blogspot.com/2024/06/dinner-at-chateau.html
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