The Eleventh Year (38 page)

And then he was walking, walking toward the child near the pond. He was admiring his daughter. She looked up, startled, suddenly afraid. She pulled away and he could see she was puzzled.

“Hello,” he said, his voice trembling.

“Hello.” She was standing stiffly, primly, shy, on her guard.

“Don't be afraid. I know who you are.” He sat down on the bench, and she was curious. She finally drew near.

“You do? But I've never seen you before.”

“That's true. Let me see now.…Your name is Cassandra. You're three years old.”

Her face changed then, lighting up. The eyes, Jamie's eyes, dancing. “Yes. And what's your name?”

“Paul.”

“Paul what?”

“Paul de Varenne.” He wondered if Jamie had ever mentioned his name, was suddenly afraid she had and also that she hadn't.

“That's a strange name. Very long.”

He wanted to say: It's your name too. Or it should be. “My name is Cassie Stewart,” she added.

He asked: “Does your
maman
always speak French to you? You speak it perfectly.”

The little girl regarded him with childish disdain. “We speak both. My
maman
speaks French and English. With me she mostly speaks English. In English
‘Maman
'
is ‘Mommie.' “

He so wanted to touch her. He held out his hand. “I know your mommie. She and I used to be very good friends.”

“Why haven't you come to see us before? Mommie's friends come all the time. What's your name again?”

He said, through his constricted throat: “Paul de Varenne.”

She began to clap her hands, laughing. “That's funny!”

He looked away, away from the forget-me-not blue that reminded him so of her, of Jamie. His vision was blurred. Cassandra said: “What's wrong? Are you unhappy?”

She
was touching
him,
miracle of miracles! Her little hand lay on his shoulder, and she wasn't acting afraid anymore, just bewildered. Grown men didn't cry in front of her every day evidently. He made himself look right at her, felt a lump in his throat. “I'm not unhappy. I'm not unhappy at all.”

He wondered what it was that had made him want to ignore her existence until that day and what had made him harden his heart against loving Jamie. It hadn't all been Elena. Perhaps he'd been afraid to be a father. His brother, on the other hand, still desperately wanted to be one.

It wasn't the nurse who came toward them a few moments later. Jamie was coming out to get the child, and when she saw her, Cassie broke away from him and ran to her mother. He thought for a minute of running the other way, then decided to hold his ground. Stubbornness planted him there so that she would have to deal with him. I've never fought, he thought, for what is mine, because nothing I've had has ever really been mine. Alex had the château, the lands, the title—and Lesley's funds.
But he,
Paul, had the child.

Jamie scooped the little girl up in her arms, and he saw, from the distance, that she couldn't move, her eyes upon him. So he walked toward her. He saw her panic. She gently pushed the child inside. “Go on, darling,” Jamie was saying, her voice unsteady. “This gentleman and I have to talk.”

Jamie's face was very pale. Paul felt his own nervousness, yet she was so obviously upset that he knew it was the instant to make his move. He felt overcome by Jamie's face, by the memories, by the fact that the child belonged to the two of them and to no one else. In the embarrassment that followed, he tried to organize his thoughts.

She was the first to speak. Her voice came out low, in staccato gulps. “This is my house,” she said. “And my daughter. You must leave.”

“I'm her father. Jamie, I've done many things you can blame me for, but you can't take away my parenthood.”

“You took it away yourself,” she contested, looking down. “I gave you your option three and a half years ago.”

“I was wrong then.”

Their eyes locked, held. “You regret choosing Elena?” she finally asked, defiantly.

“Jamie. Please. One has nothing to do with the other.”

“Elena has everything to do with us. The minute she stepped into your life, our life was over. I don't want somebody else's leftovers. You chose to be with Elena more than three years ago. You forfeited your right to this child.”

“That isn't fair. What about divorced parents?”

“That's different. If you'd made an effort—married me, tried to make it work—I could have seen that the child was worth something to you. But you never came forward. You let this child exist for over three years and never made a move. I've earned the right to call her my daughter. You've earned nothing.”

She looked at Paul again, with eyes full of anger. “You've always been a selfish, thoughtless man. But I never realized to what extent! Legally, and in God's book, she's mine. I've earned my parenthood. Ask Elena to give you a baby and leave us alone.

“Please go, Paul,” Jamie said once more in a weary, sad voice. “This is a home, and that's something you've never understood.”

He straightened himself up, shaking, staring at her. At that moment the emptiness of his existence hit him with certainty. It was 1928, he was thirty-seven. He didn't even want to think of Elena. Lust made people hard, love made them pliable and giving. He didn't love the Russian princess, had confused love with desire. Before he turned away, feeling the greatest loss he had ever encountered, he murmured, trying not to flinch before the honesty of Jamie's eyes: “Maybe I'm understanding it right now.”

He found himself looking at her going back into the elegant white mansion. He felt numb. She'd said everything and he hadn't found the words to convince her. But now he knew what he had to find out. At some point one had to connect, to belong. She'll come to me one day, he thought, trying to dull the terrible pain. Everyone needs a father.

B
ertrand de la Paume
, for his sixty-eight years, walked erect, with the elegance of a man of the world who knew he had seen better days but would be damned if he'd allow the world to guess it. His hair was white, thick, combed away from his creased forehead. In his bachelor apartment, he was greeted by his manservant who at once helped to remove the stiff tuxedo jacket and frilled shirt, and then, without having to be reminded, brought out the warm foot bath and massaged the tired feet before placing them one by one inside the ceramic basin. By the side table stood a crystal glass with bromides, and Bertrand swallowed them down. His stomach these days could no longer bear rich food, and at this evening's supper in honor of a new young actress, he had consumed too much champagne and too many unusual hors d'oeuvres. He'd have to remember to have a marvelous assortment of flowers sent to her. Then he heard the doorbell ring, and was surprised. His valet stood up to attend to the late visitor.

When he returned, he said to his master: “Monsieur le Chevalier, Monsieur Paul is here. Shall I tell him to join you here?”

Bertrand raised his brows: Paul? So late? He felt a strange tension but nodded. He waited, perplexed and worried.

Almost at once the younger man entered, somewhat disheveled and out of breath. Bertrand leaned forward. “Are you all right?”

Taking a deep breath, Paul sat down, wove the fingers of both hands together. “No. I'm really not. I had to see you.”

“You're always welcome here.”

There was a short silence. Paul could feel the lump in his throat. “Bertrand—I must ask and you must answer. For the sake of…so many things. For the sake of my sanity. You've been like a father to me.
Why?”

Bertrand smiled. “Because you touch my heart. Because I once loved your mother. Because you needed help and guidance and…what more can I say?”

“You could tell me, once and for all, whether you
are
my father.”

Bertrand could sense prickles on his forearms. His throat had gone dry. He could not look away from the intense, reddened eyes of the young man before him. “What does Charlotte say?”

“That she doesn't remember. That I should be lucky not to have been born like my brother, of Robert-Achille. But that doesn't tell me who I am. Thirty-seven years of wonderment…I need to know.”

“Why now?”

“I've wanted to know before. Nobody ever graced me with the truth. But I have to know now. Because I've seen Jamie and Cassandra.”

The virulence and passion startled Bertrand. “Jamie? Cassandra? What do you mean?”

“I didn't think I loved Jamie. But Cassandra—I know I love her. And so I need to know who I am, for her sake too. Please, Bertrand—tell me. Tell us both.”

All at once Bertrand seemed to wither. “Paul,” he said softly, “there is no way to be sure. Those were heady years—the early nineties. Charlotte was the most enchanting woman in Paris. Her husband hardly noticed her. She had her own problems. A woman like that—full of lust and vanity—needed the adulation of men who could appreciate her. I was one of them. Another was Bertie—King Edward the Seventh, when he was Prince of Wales. I know that she was seeing us at the same time. Then there was an English lord—I can't even recall his name. She was ours for the nights we had her, and we never questioned her further. That, my friend, was our code of honor during
La
Belle Epoque.
A child was conceived. The English lord was sickly and blond. You were born sturdy, ruddy. You were obviously not his child. But as for Bertie and me—nobody really knows. You don't look like Charlotte. For many years, while you were at the Lycée Condorcet, she pretended that you had royal lineage in you. She relished that story and probably believed it. But then—as you grew older, she became more pensive. She convinced herself that
our
love had been
the
love of her life, that the others had been meaningless flings. That no one but I could have been your father.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I suppose I want to believe it. You've wasted everything that's been handed to you. Still, you know that I love you. I've never made the mistake of marrying, so I don't know how a father is supposed to feel. But I feel strong ties to you. I hope you are my son, although it's too late to claim you. At the time I wished to do so, Charlotte was still married. Her husband took you to be his son, and that seemed best for both you and her.”

“I want to recognize Cassie. She'll fall in line to the Varenne title. Won't she?”

“Recognize Cassie?”

Paul looked away. “Yes. She's all the good, the grace, that Jamie and I were never able to put out together except in that one being. You should see her—”

“I should?”

“If you're her grandfather, see her! She's marvelous. Bertrand—my life—it's been a ruin, you know that. I want Cassandra to be a
grande dame.
But I have nothing to offer her.”

“Jamie has allowed you to visit Cassie? Lesley always said she was opposed to it with a vengeance. I couldn't blame her, really. What made her change her mind?”

“She didn't. I…went to Louveciennes. On an impulse. I saw Cassandra.”

Shock registered on Bertrand's features. He said: “But that's cruel! The child doesn't know who you are! Jamie must be terribly upset! She defied society to give birth to that child. That little girl is her whole life. How dare you do that now?”

Paul blinked back his amazement. “I thought you'd understand.”

“When you were small, I stood by the sidelines, waiting. I entered your life slowly, step by step. We became friends when you were twenty, a young adult. You learned to trust me. I never defied your mother's wishes.”

“Cassie belongs to me as much as to Jamie.”

“Not in a court of law. You never recognized the baby, nor gave her your name. In a court of law, your rights would be nil. And for Cassie's sake, Alex would fight the toughest legal battle of his existence. He wastes no love on you, and neither does Lesley.”

Paul's face now took on an ugly, tight expression. “How loyal of them. My own family.” He stood up, suddenly shaky. “Bertrand, try to understand,” he pleaded. “I need to be a part of Cassandra's life.”

The old man looked at him with some disdain. “One pays for one's sins,” he declared. “Illegitimacy hurts the child, but also the father. Learn to pay as I did for the carelessness of your youth. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Let Jamie learn to respect you first. Then reapproach the child, but only with her mother's approval. Don't destroy what Jamie has built.”

“Don't ask me to destroy myself. Cassie is all I've ever had of good in the world.”

“Then make more good! Make her proud of you. Claim her only when you deserve her.”

“All these years I hoped you were my father. But parenthood isn't built on logic—it's built on emotions you don't seem to have, for me, or for Cassandra.”