The Charmers: A Novel(23)
“You don’t seem to understand,” he said almost pityingly. “Someone seems determined to kill you. And what I want is for you to tell me why.”
I was suddenly back to the frightened woman I had been before he rescued me. Well, not exactly rescued, but saved me anyway. That man in my room would not, I was sure, have simply gone away. Had the cops not announced their arrival, sirens and lights blazing, I might have been a dead woman, bullet through the chest from that silver gun, the Siamese and the sausage dog sitting helplessly at my head, the canary singing a mournful anthem to my passing.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I don’t know any reason why someone should want to kill me. I’ve never done anyone any harm. I don’t even know many people here. I inherited the Villa Romantica from my aunt, I don’t even know much about it.…”
“Do you know about Jerusha?”
I was silenced by his surprising question.
“Jerusha?” he repeated. “The woman who first owned the villa. The woman for whom it was built.”
“I … well, I’ve heard of her, of course. I knew this was her place.”
“Her lover built it for her. It was the most expensive villa on the coast at that time. The grounds alone were several hectares of land. There was a lavish lifestyle, famous guests, many servants.”
“I had heard,” I said, though in truth I did not really know the whole story, it had all happened so long ago. “Surely nobody really cares about all that anymore.”
He was silent for a while, then he said, “Perhaps,” as he got to his feet. “I shall leave two men on duty tonight. You will be safe. Tomorrow, I suggest you get yourself some able-bodied help. For security purposes.”
“Bodyguards, you mean?” I couldn’t believe it. I needed security? “But why?”
“That is a question only you can answer, Madame. But I might suggest you look into your past, into everybody’s past, to find out. Meanwhile, get that security.”
And the Colonel turned and left me, mouth agape, wondering what it was all about.
Part II
Jerusha 1930s
17
Mirabella
Much later, as dawn was lifting the sky, I sat on my bed, alone again, with the envelope containing a letter written by Jerusha. I was holding a piece of history in my hand, meant only to be read by her descendants, or those that remembered her, or at least remembered more than the scandal, the disaster she was involved in, the events that had brought her and her entire world down, and after which she simply disappeared. No one knew and, as time passed, no one even cared where she had gone.
But before that, and perhaps what led up to it, was her early story written here in her own hand, of a girl born to beauty and poverty, a combination that spelled disaster. Life did not offer much to a girl in those circumstances, a girl that looked like that, other than to go to the stage. It was 1926. “Theatre” was what she was destined for, at least that’s what her mother told her when she took her by the hand, aged thirteen, on the train to Paris to “seek her fortune.” And the fame that assuredly would come with it.
The letter was written in the distinctive violet ink Jerusha preferred, and began with the words, This is my story.
Jerusha
You will have read other tales, different versions, of what I am about to say, but as the woman to whom all this happened, only I know the truth. I shall tell it to you now, in the hope it will be remembered, that I will not be judged forever for what happened. I have lived my life extravagantly, I admit it, but I also lived it honorably, or at least within the standards I considered honorable, showing compassion to those who needed a shoulder to cry on, giving material help to those who came to me in need, caring with all my heart for those young ones, the children I took into my life, who shared my life, who were my life.
I was born in a village near the town of Sarlat in the Dordogne region, a land spiked with young vines that over the years would become producers of the good wines of Bordeaux, but which were then still a work in progress. No vintner, no farmer, no field worker was making money. Poverty claimed our lives, kept us hand-to-mouth for decades.
I attended school, as was usual, until I was twelve years old. I learned to read and write but not much else. Too tall for my age, too much hair always unkempt, too long and too red, scraped back with a bit of string. There was no money even for ribbons from the tinkers that sold door-to-door. They did not bother so much as knocking on our door. It was a one-bedroom cottage, built a century or so before, as a stable. There were no foundations and it listed to one side, its black-and-white timbers were cracked, the door lintel sloped, the door itself hung off rusted hinges, and a bead curtain always rattling in the wind. Nothing kept out the bitter chill of winter, the rains of spring, the heat of summer. I knew nothing different. I never complained, though I would have liked a ribbon. I thought it would have made me like the other girls, the ones that ignored me, gathering together in a giggling clump, whispering behind their hands as I stood silently across the schoolyard. It was only a small stretch of beaten-down earth, unpaved and weedy and where the few tufts of grass hid bugs so small you never saw them but that bit your ankles, leaving ferocious red welts that lasted for weeks.
I wore my faded blue smock, my wrinkled once-white stockings, and clumsy black shoes with broken heels. They had belonged first to a neighbor girl, then to her sister, and had finally been passed pityingly on to me, who stuffed them with rags and bits of paper to keep out the wet and keep them on my narrow feet.