Girl in the Afternoon (23 page)

“Englishman.”

“And yet you have a French surname and an atrocious accent?”

“I've been in France since I was a child.”

“Yes, with the Savarays, I've heard.” Lady Arrington looked at Aimée. “Have you shown Monsieur Savaray your work?”

With resignation, and a tinge of contempt, Aimée said, “No. Is that what you wish me to do?”

“What else did he come here for?”

“Tea. You invited him.”

“There will be no tea today.” Lady Arrington swatted her hand at them, her head bobbing on her wiry neck. “Let him view the work if that's why he's come. Why do you sit here wasting his time?”

Without a word, Aimée left the room. When Henri stepped into the hall she was already mounting the stairs, her dress a river of black silk rippling behind her. He took the stairs two at a time and followed her into a room with high windows that gave off a pure, natural light.

At first, Henri only noticed the painting to his right, a naked child with fat thighs and rolls of pink skin, sitting on the lap of a woman whose chemise had fallen over one shoulder, exposing her breast down to the nipple. It was when he scanned the rows of paintings lining the walls that he was hit with the full force of Aimée's drained pallor, her vacant wandering expression, her lack of interest in food, or anything that might sustain her. The one thing he had feared surrounded him.

He was looking at canvas upon canvas of infants. They were nursing, toddling, and bathing. There were newborns in laps and babies climbing on beds. Mothers were catching them. Washing them. Wiping hair from a brow, kissing a cheek, reading a book, picking a flower. The warmth and radiance of Aimée's longing was magnificent on canvas. It made Henri want to take her in his arms and hold her as he should have done long ago, when he'd been too afraid of what real love might do to him.

Aimée stiffened when he looked at her, warned him with a hollow stare not to come any closer. “I apologize for the tea,” she said quickly. “I'm sorry if you were expecting something.”

“No.” Henri shook his head. “You were all I was expecting, or at least hoping for. Just you.”

She winced and turned to the wall, unhooking a smock and pulling it over her shoulders.

“I was thinking”—Henri ran a hand through his hair, the idea only now forming—“that I might convince you to accompany me to my father's. He lives a fair distance outside of London, but I was hoping not to have to face him alone.” What he could not face was leaving Aimée alone in this bleak house surrounded by these canvases, relics of what she'd lost.

“I don't see what use I'd be.” Aimée yanked the strings of her smock and pulled them tight around her waist, looking as if she might snap in two. “If you would kindly excuse me, I have work to get back to.”

“At least allow me to see you again.”

“What for?” Keeping her back to him she moved in front of her easel, straightening her shoulders with a slight, corrective gesture. “It's not likely we'll resume a friendship. You'll go back to France, and I'll stay here. What would be the use?”

Henri hadn't counted on this level of abject misery. Aimée was indomitable, the gatherer of a strength that he had always counted on. He thought he'd come here and see that she was at least content, consumed with her work, and getting on with things as she always had. That was what he needed so he could return to his life with Leonie, to the children, and say it had all worked out.

Aimée picked up her brush. “Leave me, please,” she said. Then, in a voice Henri had never heard before, one trembling with emotion, she whispered, “Please, Henri, I need you to go. Just go.”

Not knowing what else to do, he left her.

*   *   *

For
hours he walked under a gray English sky, a steadfast pulse of guilt like a second set of footsteps walking beside him.

Eventually, he found himself on a narrow street lined with women, their puckered mouths painted red as roses. Skirts were swept up, legs shown. Petticoats circled smooth white calves, exposing dainty ankles tucked into soft leather boots. He leaned into one girl, lured by her fleshy arms and full bust. Her lips were moist, and her tongue tasted of cinnamon. But after a moment, he pulled away, muttered an apology, and ducked down an alley.

Somehow, he made his way back to the inn. Once in his room, he splashed ice-cold water on his face.

From the moment he had met Aimée, as a bewildered boy, she had been there for him, sensitive and rigorous in her friendship. Letting him keep his silences, his secrets, but forcing him to get on with his life. He had moved forward because of her, because she'd shown him how. In return he had given her nothing. In return he'd betrayed her.

He scrubbed a rough towel over his eyes and cheeks and hands. He was not an honorable man. An honorable man would have faced what he'd done that night with Colette. Not him; no, he'd run away. And then, after abandoning Aimée without a word, she still came after him, loyal in her friendship, loving, committed. And what did he do? He went for Leonie because it was easy. It was the easy, selfish thing to do.

Snapping the towel in the air, he walked over to the bed and dropped onto his back. Not until Aimée was right in front of him at the cottage, and he couldn't have her, did he show her any feeling. And that was the cruelest thing of all, showing her what might have been, the possibilities that had come too late.

Now he had her daughter. What more could he possibly take?

He turned onto his side, feeling the tremendous expanse of Aimée's grief as if it were his own.

He could not leave her here, not like this.

 

Chapter 27

The house in Burford was exactly as he remembered: foreboding, but steadfast, able to withstand all manner of people inside its walls.

Low in the west, a black strip of clouds curled over the horizon, and a soft rain started. It whispered around Henri like a hushed warning as he made his way to the front door of Abbington Hall.

A tall, stern-faced butler greeted him. When Henri asked to see the master of the house the butler raised a single bushy eyebrow, gave an incredulous smile, and told Henri to wait in the library.

“I'd prefer the drawing room, if it's all the same,” Henri said.

“The library's where we show people.” The butler strode to the door.

Henri's chest tightened, and he could feel a line of sweat forming under the band of his hat. The windows were shut up, and it smelled of dust and age.

“Sir?” Behind him, the butler stood waiting to take his hat.

Henri handed it over, and the butler left with the hat held at arm's length, clicking the door shut behind him.

With a slow breath Henri faced the room where books lined the walls to the ceiling, surrounding him. Somewhere, he knew, on one of these shelves were the books his father had written. Henri suddenly felt as if his lungs were collapsing. In a panic he looked toward the window, reminding himself of the sweet smell of grass, the cool rain, and the earth beneath his feet. Reminding him that past the heavy front door of this house the world still existed.

Trying for slow, shallow breaths Henri attempted to scrutinize the things around him without any particular attachment: the carpet, huge, threadbare, a floral pattern circling under his muddy boot prints, stenciled wallpaper, another floral pattern, a hunting painting—dogs and men and rifles—an English landscape of no distinguishable place.

Henri hated this room. He had tried to avoid it as a child. When his father was in a good mood, he'd make Henri sit in here and listen to him reminisce about the success of his first novel and the glorious, halcyon days before his marriage. Henri's behind would grow numb in the leather chair, and his clasped fingers would tingle with impatience. The clock would strike the dinner hour, and still his father rambled on. Henri always had the sense his father had no idea who he was talking to. But Henri preferred these outbursts to the dark days when his father shut himself in his study. Then, Henri never knew what was coming, and he had learned to be cautious, to make himself scarce.

He wondered, now, why he hadn't been more afraid for his mother. Maybe she'd seemed safe shut up in her room. He had thought she never left the house, until one morning he woke early and saw her walking over the hill. She walked swiftly, her head high, her coat flapping. He had the frightening feeling she wasn't coming back, and he didn't move from the window until her small figure emerged once more in the distance. After that, he woke every morning to watch for her return. As soon as he heard the front door he'd run downstairs with a frantic, “Good morning, Mama,” holding very still as she passed, hoping for the rare pat on his head, resisting the urge to hug her when it came.

Then, one morning, only a thin fog crept over the empty hill. Henri thought maybe his mother had gone out earlier than usual and he'd just missed her, but there was a sick feeling in his stomach. For hours he stood with his hands clasped in prayer trying to will her back.

Looking around the library, Henri's gaze settled on the upholstered armchair where his mother sat those days before she disappeared, when he asked her if she would read one of his father's books out loud. She had looked at him tenderly, remorsefully, and he had stood next to that chair and put his hands on her cheeks. He had thought then that she might love him after all, despite how she was.

The enormous clock on the mantel gave a single, sharp toll as it struck one. It startled Henri, and he walked abruptly to the window. A light rain still sifted down, the wind causing it to lift and fall in irregular patterns over the hills and fields and gardens. Jonquils were in bloom, and the daisy stalks were up, their buds tight and green.

“Henri?”

A female voice came from behind, and Henri turned to find the woman who had taken him to France so long ago. She wore a dark blue dress, just as she had that day, only her hair was no longer blond, but silver, and pulled high on her head. In his memory, she was a wispy, pale beauty with a hardened face. There was still a hint of her beauty left, and her hardness defined in fierce lines on her brow. She had lived in this house Henri's entire childhood, and only now did it occur to him that she had likely been his father's mistress.

“Miss Marion Gray,” he said, smiling. He hadn't thought it would be good to see her, but it was.

“You have impeccable timing.” She crossed the room with a limp he'd forgotten she had. As a child, that limp was the only thing that had made her seem vulnerable.

She did not offer her hand as conventional women did, but took hold of his and held it firmly, pressing it between both of hers. “I'm sorry to tell you your father died,” she said directly. “December 5. You've just missed him.”

It was as if a rope had been cut around Henri's middle. The tightness let up, and he looked into Marion's misty eyes, finding himself embarrassingly light-headed, but not stricken, as one might assume. Someone else's son would have been devastated to come all this way, after all this time, only to have missed the father he had not seen in seventeen years, by a mere five months. But Henri was relieved, and it showed all over his face.

Marion smiled. “You're right.” She nodded as if she could read his thoughts. “He'd only grown meaner. Fiercer. Sadder.” She let go of Henri's hand, this last word spoken tenderly.

“And my mother?” he asked, and it was impossible not to hear his expectant tone, the anxious anticipation and hope.

Marion shook her head. “No, my dear. She never came home.”

Henri nodded, looking at the upholstered chair, a deep, familiar regret spreading through his whole body. He had known this the moment he stepped into the library. Her absence was in the dust, in the untouched books, the empty desk and the silent, vacant air around him, and yet there was a part of him that could not let go of her.

“It's not teatime,” Marion said, “but let's have some anyway, in the dining room. I despise it in here.” She gave a little shiver, took hold of Henri's hand, and led him from the room.

Walking down the hall, safely away from the library, Marion said, “The servants have absolutely no respect for me, but I'm the only one they have to answer to now. If I want tea at an irregular hour, tea it is.”

It was the same dining room table he'd sat at as a boy, the same sideboard and elegant-backed chairs, probably the same teacups and silver. And even though it was far from comforting, Henri found he could breathe a little easier. Unlike the library, the dining room didn't hold the faded memory of his mother. She had never once taken dinner in here with them. It had only been Marion, his demure grandmother who he remembered as a silent, wide-eyed presence, and his fickle, mercurial father, either slumped in his chair, speechless and sour, or shouting, loud and fast, spit flying.

For a while, they drank their tea in silence. Eventually, Henri asked, “Why didn't you write that my father had died?”

He swirled the dregs of sugar at the bottom of his cup, the last bit of tea rising up the sides of white porcelain and sliding back down.

Marion watched him carefully. “Why would I?” she answered, forthright. “I never knew what happened to you after I left Paris. And then, so many years later, you write asking for my help. Asking me to lie for you.” She smiled, an ironic smile, showing he was quite right to assume she'd agree. “You asked not a single question in return, nothing of your father, or your mother. I assumed you'd rather not know.” She reached for the teapot—a round belly of shiny silver—exposing her delicate wrist as it stretched away from her lace cuffs.

A spout of tea steamed into his cup, and Henri dropped in two lumps of sugar, watching them promptly sink to the bottom. “You were right. I didn't want to know.”

Marion tilted the teapot over her cup with a finger pressed to the lid. “Why now?”