Grahame, Lucia (48 page)

I scanned the letter again.

"He doesn't say."

"Throw it away!" cried Madame Vignon with a shudder.
"I know that trick! To omit such pertinent information means only one
thing: There are so many children and they are all so small that the truth
would prejudice any sane woman against him!"

"Oh, it can do no harm to meet with him," I said. My
prospective employers were not so numerous that I could afford to reject any of
them out of hand. I wrote to accept the date Mr. Blake had suggested for our
meeting. Madame even offered me the use of her study for the interview.

In late November, Nina's father came to Vignon to pay his daughter
a visit. While he was at the school, he requested an interview with me. In
contrast to his scrawny, high-strung daughter, the solicitor was a rotund,
placid-looking gentleman.

"Ah, Mrs. Hastings," he greeted me warmly. "Such a
pleasure to meet you at last. My daughter writes of you so glowingly! My wife
and I want you to know how much we appreciate the time you have taken to help
her feel less lonely here. We are sorry to think that you will be leaving
Vignon next month."

"Nina is a delightful young lady," I replied.

"I have come to Geneva on business as well as pleasure,"
continued Mr. Lewingdon after we had spoken of Nina for a few minutes longer.
"And, as a matter of fact, my business is with you."

His somber tone gave me a shiver of alarm. He was, after all, a
London solicitor. Perhaps he was even employed by the firm of Smalley &
Brown. But what could they want with me? Had my husband decided to divorce me
after all?
Could
he? Was that why he'd tried to get news of me from
Marguerite?

And had I unwittingly given myself away? How desperately I wished
that I had been less open with Nina on the subject of my origins!

"One of my firm's branches in the United States has requested
our assistance in trying to locate a Miss Caroline Hastings, born in Brighton
and raised in Holwich, Kent," he continued. "It's proven to be a most
difficult assignment."

I could only stare with growing anxiety.

"I hope you can forgive me for allowing my daughter to play
the detective," he continued. "She knows nothing of my reasons for
wanting to learn a little more about you." His expression was
distressingly grave. "If you are who I believe you are," he concluded
gently, "I am afraid I have some very sad news for you."

My mind shot backward to the first time I had heard words like
that, spoken in just that tone, one chilly morning in Paris not so very long
ago—the words that had summoned me to Frederick's lifeless body.

"Oh no!" I whispered, forgetting everything except my
dread. "Not Tony!"

"What was your father's full name?" the lawyer asked me
once I had recovered enough self-possession to assure him that he need not call
for smelling salts or burn a goose quill under my nose.

"Harold Barclay Hastings," I replied wonderingly.

"I am very sorry to tell you this," said Mr. Lewingdon,
"but a gentleman of that name passed away last June in San Francisco,
California."

"Please forgive my first reaction," I managed to say
after a long while. "I feared you brought other news."

Silent tears—but now of a much milder sorrow—were still sliding
down my cheeks.

"I never knew my father," I explained. "I have not
known for years whether he was dead or alive."

Dimly I heard Mr. Lewingdon telling me that once I had established
my identity satisfactorily, I would inherit my father's estate. It was not
insignificant. My father had founded a chain of dry goods stores in the
American West; in his later years, before he'd sold them, they had become very
profitable. There were no other heirs. My father's second wife had died,
childless, only a few months before his own death. In short, Mr. Lewingdon
concluded bluntly, my father had left me the means to live in comfort for the
rest of my life.

However, at the time of preparing his will, his health and memory
already failing, he had been unable to recall my married name or any other
details of my marriage. To the best of his recollection, I had eloped with a
penniless musician or actor and gone to France. The difficulty of tracing me
had been compounded by the fact that my very name had been a point of
contention between him and my grandmother: To the end of his life, my father
had always insisted upon referring to me by the name he had given me at birth.

I had enormous difficulty focusing on Mr. Lewingdon's words. I
could think of nothing but the emotions which had flashed through me in the
instant when I had imagined my husband dead. How could I have been so blind to
my own feelings? How could I have repressed them by pretending that the world I
had left behind would remain conveniently static until some distant moment when
I could resolve my conflicts without sacrificing my pride and risking further
pain?

There would never be such a moment.

My father, whose rejection of any relationship with me I had
accepted without complaint, yet who had never forgotten me, was gone now,
forever beyond my reach. Dead and beyond the reach of my love were my
grandmother, Frederick, and my daughter.

But my husband, who had loved me better than any of them and who
might have been—
would
have been—equally dear to me had I only found the
courage to open my heart to him, still lived.

I knew then that I cared far more for him than I had ever dared to
acknowledge.

Now Mr. Lewingdon was assuring me that he did not expect the
question of my identity to present insurmountable difficulties. That was when I
mentioned that I still possessed one souvenir of my father—the letter he had
written to me upon hearing of my first marriage.

When I produced it, Nina's father started visibly at the sight of
the envelope, which was addressed to Mrs. Frederick Brooks. After a long
silence, he remarked, still in that dispassionate tone, "I trust you are
aware, Lady Cam—"

I raised my hand quickly to silence him.

"Mrs. Hastings," he amended dryly.

Now another melodramatic vision filled my mind. He knew my secret.
It would ruin the school. He would take Nina away immediately. Inevitably,
other parents would hear of the scandal. When it came time for the school to
reopen after the Christmas holidays, the pleasant classrooms and pretty little
bedrooms would be empty. Poor Madame Vignon!

"Mr. Lewingdon," I began, my voice raw with anxiety, but
before I could frame my plea he interrupted me.

That night I wrote a letter to my husband.

I told him that I had been living in Switzerland but would be
visiting Marguerite and Théo in Paris at Christmastime and that I hoped he
would give me an opportunity to meet with him then. I added that I had given a
great deal of thought to our marriage, since we had separated, and that I was
ready to extend myself to him as unreservedly as he had long ago extended
himself to me.

I told him that I loved him.

How I wished that I might have spoken those three words, which I
had once rendered so untrustworthy, in per- son, instead of having to inscribe
them on a piece of paper. But I could not withhold them until the perfect
moment. I had already waited too long.

When I posted the letter, I again ignored my husband's
instructions to communicate with him only through his solicitors. I sent the
letter to Charingworth. Then I waited in a frenzy of anticipation for his response.

The night before the Christmas holidays began, I dreamed I was on
the train from Paris to Fontainebleau, but this time I was not sitting demurely
across from my suitor cutting prim, measured little wedges from a pear with a
silver knife. I was lying across the seat with my head in my husband's lap and
lifting the ripe, intact fruit to his mouth, and he was laughing down at me as
he bent his head to bite into it....

If only there were a way to bring the dream to life.

The next morning I began to pack my trunks for my departure. It
was still early in the day, but the mood of giddy anticipation that always
marks the advent of school holidays had begun to dissipate as, one by one, the
young ladies took their leave. Nina had just gone, with hugs and promises.

My husband's refusal to respond to my written appeal had crushed
my spirits momentarily, but I was determined to persist. I vowed I would not
lose heart with each disappointment. I had decided that when I left Vignon I
would go, not to Paris, but to England—and to him.

Now, as in preparation for my journey, I folded the well-worn and
mended gowns I suddenly realized I need never wear again, my thoughts were
interrupted by the sound of Madame's brisk footsteps on the attic stairway.

They came to a stop outside the open door to the little room I had
shared with Mademoiselle Hubert.

"Mrs. Hastings, did you forget, in all the excitement, to
write to Mr. Blake to cancel your interview?" she inquired with a very odd
look.

"No, of course not, madame," I replied. "I wrote
weeks ago to cancel
all
my interviews. Why do you ask? He is not
here,
is he?"

"Yes, and he claims that he never received any such letter.
He insists upon speaking with you personally. I have tried to make him
understand that it can be to no avail, but, although he is extremely polite, he
is quite intractable. You are fortunate to have escaped the necessity of
working for your bread, for if his innumerable children are anything like him,
you'd have had your hands full with them! I am at my wit's end, Mrs. Hastings.
I cannot persuade him to leave!"

"I
did
send the letter," I repeated. "I
don't know how he could have failed to receive it! But let me go and set him
straight!"

He must be an alarmingly stubborn man, I thought, for Madame, at
her most forbidding, could have easily routed the whole Swiss Army. I followed
her down the stairway, happier than ever that I was no longer in need of a
position.

We entered her study.

He was seated on the sofa at the far end of the long room, and
rose to greet me languidly, with a faint smile.

"Mrs. Hastings, I presume—" he began calmly.

"Anthony!" I whispered. I lifted my hem and broke into a
run in his direction.

For one splendid instant I thought I saw my husband's
self-possession shatter. He was staring at me with a shaken look.

It was Madame who brought me up short.
"Mrs.
Hastings!"
she exclaimed in a low but arresting voice. "Please be good enough to
remember where you are!"

I sank into one of two armchairs that stood opposite the sofa. To
my horror, Madame, her posture issuing a clear challenge, had taken the other
chair.

No one spoke.

My husband continued to stare at me with a look of confusion, but
slowly some color began to return to his face.

I gazed back at him in a hopeless effort to communicate with my
eyes what Madame's chastening presence had prevented me from expressing more
indecorously.

Madame looked from one of us to the other with the severe
expression she was accustomed to assume while waiting for an explanation from
two students who had been found quarreling.

Why did my husband look so taken aback? Had he expected to find
someone else? A
real
Mrs. Hastings?

I began to feel ever more uncertain and mystified. Perhaps he had
not come here for me at all! And why was
he
using a false name?

The silence continued.

Madame Vignon did nothing to reduce my discomfort.

Then, after a long time, my husband's expression relaxed and the
corners of his mouth began to twitch.

"I have asked Madame Vignon whether I might have a word or
two with you privately," he began with perfect sangfroid, addressing
himself to me, "but she has adamantly refused. On grounds of propriety.
Naturally I respect her wishes, so I suppose we will have to conduct our
interview accordingly."

His voice was light; his face, inscrutable.

I turned to Madame.

"Madame," I said hardly above a whisper, "this
gentleman's name is not Henry Blake. This is Sir Anthony Camwell."

"Oh?" she said. "And what business has this Sir
Anthony Camwell with you?"

Uneasily I eyed the open door; beyond it lay the entrance
hall—still a thoroughfare for departing young ladies. Even now someone's trunks
were being bumped down the carpeted stairway. My husband must have heard them,
too. He went to the door, shut it softly, and returned to face Madame's
unsmiling face, which accused him as a masquerader.