The Butler(34)

“That must have been painful for you, when you found out about your father,” he said. “I never knew mine either. He died when I was three. I only found that out recently. He left us before that. It was just me, my brother, and my mother. She remarried when I was seventeen. That’s when we came to France from Buenos Aires. My stepfather was a wonderful person. I only lived with them for a few years, and then I left for England, and stayed there. It’d odd never having known your father. My mother did a good job with us for all those years before we came here. She’s a remarkably strong woman.”

    Olivia was pensive, thinking of her own mother. “Mine wasn’t. She gave up her whole life for one man. They never married. She spent every moment waiting for him, and only came alive when he was with her. She was like a ghost in a way, or a shadow. She never materialized until he was in the room. I hated it for her. It made me gun-shy about ever being dependent on a man. So I became addicted to my work instead,” she said. “I suppose we all have our addictions.”

He nodded, thinking about it. It explained why she wasn’t married at forty-three. He had less of an excuse, other than the nature and demands of his job. He had dedicated himself to his career too, to the exclusion of all else, with the exception of occasional passing romances that he never allowed to become serious involvements. But he never let them get in the way of his work. They had that in common too.

“My mother met my stepfather when she was fifty-four,” he said. “She was almost forty when she had me. He was the love of her life, so I suppose it can happen at any age. I remind her of that now when she tells me I should be married.” He grinned at Olivia. It was easy opening up to her, and unusual for him. He always kept his distance, but in many ways their circumstances were similar. They were each at a crossroads in their lives, during a pause between jobs, with previous single-minded direction. Olivia seemed very vulnerable to him, and his instinct was to protect her, as he had from the dishonest maid. That was part of his job too. He had shielded the Cheshires, particularly as they got older and more fragile. He had been at his side with the marchioness when the marquess died. Their children had never been very attentive. They had grown up in boarding schools from an early age, and weren’t close to their parents, except when it suited them, which wasn’t often. But he supposed the same could be said of him, working in England now that his mother was alone. She never complained, and made it easy for him, and he felt guilty about it.

    Olivia wondered about his brother, but didn’t bring it up, despite the confessions of the evening. It had seemed so painful to him the last time it came up, when he said he hadn’t seen him in twenty-five years. She assumed that they must have had a terrible falling out for that to happen. And she was impressed by his dedication, and obviously deep affection for his mother. He always spoke of her with a warm smile or a look of concern. She hadn’t been as warm with her own mother. She had so hated her mother’s willingness to give herself up to George until there was nothing left of her. He had always come first, above all else, even her daughter. He had destroyed her mother’s life, and she had let him. She was his willing slave. Olivia still shuddered at the thought of any relationship like that. She would never let it happen to her. She would rather be alone than a slave.

Olivia and Joachim enjoyed dinner together, and the relaxed atmosphere between them. Most of the time they were too busy to talk much, and concentrated on the task at hand, whatever it was. Their dinner had led to confessions.

He had hired a new maid for her, a Portuguese girl who was hardworking and seemed honest, so far. But Olivia kept her few valuables in the safe now, at the back of one of her closets. She had learned her lesson. She even locked up her purse.



* * *



—

    As she got to know him, Olivia had become aware that Joachim was a very private person, with clear boundaries. He always kept in mind that he worked for Olivia and acted accordingly, which made their conversation over dinner unusual. He never said how he spent his days off. He never talked about a girlfriend, which didn’t mean he didn’t have one. Because of the nature of the job, he knew more about Olivia than she did about him, which occasionally made her uncomfortable. She had never had anyone in a comparable position in her home life, or even her assistant at the magazine, although there wasn’t that much to know about her, except her history, which she had never shared with anyone, but had talked about with Joachim.

It had bothered her all her life that she was illegitimate, and her mother had been the mistress of a married man. It bothered her morally, but it also made her feel less than others, and she never told the men she dated. She would have told someone she intended to marry, but she had never even come close to that. She knew that all her romantic relationships were temporary, and most of them were a dead end, for one reason or another, geographically or socially, or she just didn’t think the men were good enough. Her mother had had the prejudices and snobbisms of her Boston family, who had shunned her on moral grounds for having a child out of wedlock with a married man, and punished Olivia for it by disapproving of her whenever they saw her. Even as a child she could feel their icy disapproval of her.

Her mother had never liked a single boy Olivia dated when she was younger. Later, she never bothered to introduce them to her mother. There was no point. She wasn’t planning to stay with them anyway. But at least none of them were married. That was one trap she had never fallen into after watching her mother’s agonizing loneliness all her life, and her pain whenever George was with his family. Holidays were days of mourning for Margaret, and became that way for Olivia too, with her mother always too depressed to celebrate anything, except when George showed up. In recent years, Olivia had spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with friends, and she no longer needed an excuse once her mother had dementia. She didn’t know what day it was anyway, and holidays went unnoticed and unacknowledged. Margaret’s longstanding affair had touched every area of their lives. It was almost a relief to Olivia when George died. They no longer had to wait for him to show up, and she didn’t have to see her mother disappointed. But his death hadn’t freed her either since Margaret never put her life back together. It was too late by then. She didn’t have the energy or emotional strength to do it.