The Black Swan (13 page)

“But that makes it all the more exciting.”

“I am not sure that my work people would agree with that.”

“Well, if everything runs smoothly, it must be less rewarding when it all comes right in the end.”

“A philosopher, I see.”

“Well, it’s just plain common sense.”

“There are things you do not know of, Belinda. Why, some ten years ago the vine louse destroyed most of the grapes in France. That was a far from exhilarating experience, I can tell you. Just imagine the wretched creatures getting to the vines underground and sucking the sap at the roots. There is only one way of getting rid of them, and that is to flood the grounds.”

“How terrible!” said Belinda. “But how fascinating! Do tell us about Château Bourdon. Is it really a castle?”

“Not on the scale of Blois or Chambord—much, much smaller. There were many castles in France and they were not all destroyed during the Revolution. Bourdon is a medium-sized château. It is rather pleasant. It is set in attractive country and our own vineyards are quite extensive.”

She clasped her hands and gazed at him ecstatically.

I thought he was rather attracted by his daughter, but I was not sure, for he was the sort of man who would hide his true feelings under a cloak of sophistication. No doubt he was seeing all sorts of traits in her similar to his own.

He did bestow some attention on me.

He asked me what I intended to do, and I told him that as yet I was unsure.

“Lucie has suffered a great shock,” said Celeste. “She needs time to recover.”

He nodded sympathetically.

“My dear Lucie,” he said. “I feel for you. Celeste has told me how brave you have been. I must apologize for bringing up this subject on a happy occasion, but when it is so much in our thoughts it seems unnatural to make a studied effort not to mention it. I feel deeply for you … and my sister. I do indeed. But you have to grow away from it.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Belinda will help you, I’m sure.” He turned to her. “I am so glad you came home, my dear.”

“We are glad too,” said Celeste.

“Now we are going to make you put the past behind you,” he went on to me. “Are we not, Belinda?”

“Of course we are,” said Belinda. “Lucie and I are very special friends.”

“I’m glad to hear it, and I am sorry to have introduced such a somber note to our happy evening. However, I just did not want you and Celeste to think me hard-hearted.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Tell us more about the château,” pleaded Belinda.

He did so cheerfully. It had been in the possession of the Bourdons since the days of Charles the Wise and that was in the fourteenth century. It was a typical French château. “There are hundreds of them throughout France,” he went on. “Most have the rounded towers at each end which come to a point at the top.”

“They have been described as pepper pot towers,” I said.

“A good description. Gray stone … with that medieval look. It has been restored in places, of course, so you will find touches of later centuries here and there, but nothing has been done to it for the last hundred years. Such places are built to stand forever. We even survived the Revolution. I hope you will see it one day.”

Belinda exuded satisfied excitement. It was better than she had expected, I was sure. There
was
a similarity between them and I felt they would understand each other—a fact which made communication between them easy.

She was delighted with her father, and I had the impression that he was not displeased to discover he had such an exhilarating daughter.

It was late when he left the house. Belinda came to my room and sat on my bed.

“What an evening! I have never known one like it.”

“Well, it is very rare for a young woman of your age to come face-to-face with a father whom she has never seen before.”

“Do you think he liked me?”

“Like might be too strong a word. I think he found you … interesting.”

“
I
thought he liked me. He kept talking to me and watching me.”

“You kept talking to him and watching him.”

“Do you think he’ll take me to Chateau Bourdon?”

“I don’t know.”

“And to the court at Farnborough?”

“It might be rather difficult to explain an illegitimate daughter in formal society.”

“You beast, Lucie.”

“I’m only stating a fact. The French are very formal and I should imagine particularly so in royal circles … though in exile; but I should not think that detracted from the formality.”

She looked momentarily downcast and I went on, “Yes, Belinda, I think he was impressed. I feel absolutely sure that he will want to see you again … soon.”

She put her arms round my neck and kissed me.

“You’re an angel,” she said.

“I’m glad of the remarkable transformation. All this for just stating the obvious.”

“Yes,” she said musingly, “I think he liked me, too. He also likes you, Lucie.”

“He likes all young women, providing they are not outstandingly unattractive. But daughters would come into a different category. Yes, I am absolutely certain that he was not displeased with his daughter and I have a feeling that he will want to see her again … very soon.”

On that note she said good night and went to her own room.

He did come again. In fact he allowed only one day to pass, during which Belinda’s mood changed from despair to hope, and then he arrived.

It was obvious to me that he was rather amused to discover a grown-up daughter, and Belinda was just the type of whom he could be proud. She was vivacious and, if not exactly conventionally beautiful, very attractive. She had something more than beauty. Leah’s charm had been her gentleness which had given her the look of a madonna—particularly in the days when we were young and I had often seen the tenderness in her eyes when they rested on her daughter. But there was nothing of the madonna about Belinda. Hers was a flamboyant charm; she was a little mysterious, promising all sorts of excitement to those who went along with her. As soon as she entered a room one was aware of her; the atmosphere changed; she had some special quality. Even here, to this house of mourning; she had brought some relief from gloom.

I was glad for her sake that Jean Pascal Bourdon was ready to recognize her as his daughter. He was the sort of man who, if she had been unappealing, would have gone away and forgotten all about her. But he was intrigued by this dazzling girl who had suddenly presented herself to him. I guessed he was thinking the situation rather piquant.

He had never married. I wondered why. I had heard that he had intended to marry someone connected with the royal house of France, some relation of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie, but of course the ’70s debacle had put a stop to that. Jean Pascal was not the man to attach himself to a falling star. At least that was the impression I had and which I realized had been given to me by my sister Rebecca. She had clearly not wanted to talk much of him. She disliked him intensely.

During the next weeks we saw a great deal of him, for he came frequently to the house. Belinda was radiant. Her plans were working out—even better than she had hoped.

I think he rather liked to be seen with her. He bought clothes for her. He was delighted with her choice. She had French elegance, he said, which she had inherited from the paternal side of the family. She was learning French, and when Belinda applied herself to anything she did it with such enthusiasm that she was certain to succeed.

Now her great aim in life was to please her father, to bind him to her; she was determined to be part of the château life in France and finally to be received at Farnborough.

She lived in a whirl of excitement during those weeks and, I must say, to a certain extent carried me along with her; and Celeste was not far behind. She was delighted by her brother’s interest in Belinda.

Belinda’s joy was overwhelming when he suggested that she should have an allowance.

“Do you know what he said to me, Lucie?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I replied.

“He said, ‘I can’t have my daughter living with rich little Miss Lucie as a penniless dependent.’ Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it the most exciting thing to find you have a marvelous father! I have had three fathers—the first I didn’t like much; the second was all right but he was not exactly a gentleman … and now I have the perfect father.”

I said, “You are not being fair to the first two.”

“Oh shut up, Lucie. You always argue about everything. I have now found my real father and he is the best of the lot. Isn’t that something to be pleased about? I shall be able to buy some marvelous clothes. I think I shall be going to France soon.”

“Has he said so?”

“Not in so many words, but he talks about it … just as though I’m going to be there.”

“Well, I suppose you will soon be leaving us and going to your grand château. And then, of course, you’ll be joining the royal circle. I wonder what it’s like at Farnborough. How does royalty live in exile? Farnborough must be a change from Versailles.”

“I shall probably invite you.”

“That’s gracious of you. Oh, Belinda, I am so pleased, I really am … that it is working out well for you!”

I believed, as Belinda did, that her father was making some plans for her future. He was spending so much time at the house, which in the past he had rarely visited. My father had never liked him and had not been a man to assume an affability he did not feel. That may have been one of the reasons why in the past we had seen so little of Celeste’s brother. However, that was changed now.

He took us to the opera and to the theater, following with supper. They were very enjoyable and interesting evenings.

He liked to hear Belinda air her views, and he always listened intently with an amused smile on his lips.
La Traviata
was the opera we saw and I remember sitting in the restaurant with the red plush, comfortable divan-like seats, while we discussed it.

Belinda’s eyes shone. She had enjoyed the evening thoroughly.

“But I think she was rather silly to have given up her lover just because of that old father,” she said. “I didn’t like
him
at all. What business was it of his? To come and spoil it all!”

“You think she should have sent him on his way?”

“
I
would have.”

“Of course,
you
would.”

“Well, if they had not parted they would not have had long together,” I pointed out. “She was going to die soon in any case.”

“You see, Lucie has a logical mind,” said Jean Pascal. “Now that is rare in a woman. I admire it very much, Miss Lucie.”

Belinda hated his attention to be turned away from herself for a moment.

“Oh, I thought that, too,” she said.

“Then we have two logical women. Don’t you think that is something to celebrate, Celeste? Let us have some champagne.”

I watched Belinda. She never seemed tired while poor Celeste wilted. As for myself, I was still in the theater, thinking about poor Violetta, her exquisite voice still ringing in my ears. It was wonderful; even when she was on her deathbed, she sang with power and clarity.

When we arrived back at the house, Belinda came as usual to my room. It was becoming a habit for her to do so for she liked to comment on the day.

“What a wonderful evening!” she said. “I expect you were thrilled to be part of it.”

“I certainly enjoyed the opera.”

“He’s going to take us to the play. We’re going to see Ellen Terry and Henry Irving. Isn’t that exciting? I’m so glad I wrote to him. Don’t you think, Lucie, that most people don’t
make
things happen. They just go on accepting what is. I like to say
I want
that to happen and then I’m going to make it happen.”

“I think you are the sort of person who has always done that.”

“Isn’t it clever?”

“Not always, Belinda.”

I was wondering whether she remembered what she had done to Rebecca and Pedrek. That was one of the occasions when she had attempted to arrange life as she wanted it to go; and she had succeeded temporarily. She was fortunate in having to deal with forgiving people like Rebecca and Pedrek.

Now she was thinking that if she had not written to her father and implied she wanted to see him all this would not be happening now, so I supposed she had a point.

True to his promise, Jean Pascal took us to the theater. It was a wonderful experience because we saw the unique Ellen Terry as Katharine in
Henry VIII.
We were all entranced, and even Jean Pascal dropped his mood of cynical sophistication and became engrossed in the performance. There was the usual supper afterward.

“I liked her,” said Belinda. “She wasn’t going to give in.”

“But in the end she had to,” I pointed out. “He was too powerful for her.”

“That is because he was a king and a man,” replied Belinda. “They have all the power.”

“So you think that men have too much power?” asked her father.

“I think they do not have as much as they think they have … and they can be made to do things which women want as long as they don’t know they’re doing it.”

Jean Pascal laughed. “She’s a devious creature, this daughter of mine,” he said. “I am beginning to wonder whether I shall have to be on my guard against her.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t approve of,” said Belinda quickly.

“How should I know that? Would it all be part of the guile to deceive?”

“You’d know. You’re clever.”

“Still leading me on?”

Belinda was a little nonplussed. She was wondering, I guessed, whether she had betrayed too much of herself.

We went on discussing the play but she was a little restrained and uneasy.

It was during supper that Jean Pascal said, “I shall have to be going back to France very soon.”

Belinda’s expression betrayed her bitter disappointment.

He put on a doleful look and went on, “Well, you see, I have to find out what’s going on there. I have been away rather a long time.”

“When will you be coming back?” asked Belinda.

“That is something I cannot be sure of.”