Invitation to Provence(43)
Franny talked encouragingly to the silent child as she helped her undress, then stuck her under the shower and made sure she washed. When she was done she wrapped her in a towel and the girl went and huddled on the bed again.
Franny sighed. She knew what to do with animals but not small children. She dressed quickly, left her hair loose, and gave an extra little spritz of the ginger-flower scent. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought with a sigh that perhaps she should have let Clare take her shopping after all.
Then she opened Shao Lan’s tiny suitcase and stared, shocked, at its contents—a few pairs of tired underwear, some socks, and a clean shirt. Sighing again, she helped Shao Lan get dressed, then wrapped her in her own blue crochet shawl, hoping it might add cheer to the kid’s awful outfit. It didn’t help much.
Clare bounced in, brimming with excitement, chic as always in the perfect little black lace cocktail dress. She stared at the child in her blouse and crumpled gray school skirt, then at Franny. She raised her brows despairingly. “It’s all we’ve got,” Franny explained, thanking god there was no time for Clare to argue. In fact, the antique clock tolled nine as they walked back down the curving staircase to the hall where Haigh was waiting for them. Franny held Little Blue’s hand, feeling suddenly nervous—after all, she was about to meet the only other member of her family, her real true family.
THOUGH SHE HEARD the clock strike, Rafaella remained sitting in front of her dressing table mirror. It was a myth about candlelight, she thought scornfully. It was just like any other light. Too much sent shadows under your eyes and mouth, too little gave you a featureless moon face. A woman needed to be lit with a soft pink or amber tint at exactly the right angle to look really good. Especially at her age.
But the women she was about to meet were young enough to look beautiful whatever the light. Haigh had told her they looked like a pair of drowned rats, but that they had “promise.” Coming from Haigh, she took that to mean they were good-looking girls.
She had laughed when he’d told her Shao Lan’s only words. “The poor child is obviously frightened,” she said, but Haigh said he’d known right away she was a Marten by her sparky temperament.
“I never heard those words cross your lips when you were young, Madame,” he said.
But looking at her reflection in the mirror, Rafaella thought, Ah, Haigh, if only you knew what I said to Lucas in bed on those long moonless nights, entwined in his arms in the sultry summer darkness.
She shook her head. This was no time to be thinking about the Lover. Her guests were waiting. Tucking a bright red hibiscus flower into her silver chignon, she secured it with a ruby clip, dabbed a little of the mimosa scent at her throat, and went to check her appearance in the tall mirror.
The red chiffon Dior swathed her shoulders and bosom, falling in a soft fluted column to her ankles. She ran her hands over it, liking the way it felt, pleased that it fit her as perfectly as the day she’d bought it. She had on a pair of Roger Vivier pointy-toed silk shoes from the 1960s. Despite the pain, she was determined to wear them tonight because they made her feel young again.
“Vanity is shameful in an old woman,” she said to her mirror, “but it’s a vice I can never give up.” She wrapped a long strings of rubies around her neck, arranged the sweeping magenta satin shawl over her shoulders, picked up her cane, and walked slowly to the door.
The great moment had arrived. She would finally meet her new family. She hoped they would like her.
34
WEARING GRANDPèRE’S BLUE VELVET smoking, Haigh looked like a character in an Austin Powers movie as he watched the guests descend the staircase.
“Bonsoir, mesdames, mesdemoiselles,” he said, reverting to the pretense that he spoke only a little English, in the hope they might say something indiscreet so he could find out what they were really thinking. Then he escorted them into the main salon.
Fires blazed high in the two enormous limestone fireplaces at each end of the long, beautiful room, with its celadon-green paneling and amber taffeta curtains. Dozens of candles, reflected in the huge Venetian mirrors, sparkled like tiny rainbows of light from the crystal chandeliers. The French doors leading onto the terrace were firmly closed against the storm, but the wind still rattled at them fiercely, sending little drafts that made the heavy curtains tremble.
Secure in the candlelit warmth, with the storm and the wind safely shut out, Franny felt suddenly content. This was the first place she had ever been that really felt like “home.”
“May I offer you some champagne?” Haigh said, presenting the bottle, wrapped in a white linen napkin, making sure they clearly saw the name Krug and the year, wanting to impress them. Of course Franny didn’t know a good year from a bad, never having had much opportunity to drink champagne, but Clare knew all right and she smiled her appreciation at Haigh.
They stood silently together by the blazing fire, sipping the champagne. Franny thought it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. How small and insignificant her own little house and its precious flea-market finds seemed compared with this grandeur. Yet her grandfather had been born here, and had things been different, this would have been her father’s home, perhaps even her own. Curious, she examined the silver-framed photos of laughing groups from long ago standing on the front steps of the chateau, and she wondered which one of them was her great-grandfather.