And when Bernard talked about buying a palazzo in Venice, or a house in London, she scolded him now like a little boy who wanted more candy, and told him they had enough houses. He had even talked about going to Italy, to look at a yacht. He had an insatiable appetite for luxurious items and houses, but Marie-Ange was determined to keep an eye on him, and keep his extravagances in check. And by the time Robert was three months old, Bernard was already talking about their having another child. The idea appealed to Marie-Ange too, but this time she wanted to wait a few months longer, although she had already regained her figure and was prettier than ever, but she wanted to have a few months to spend more time with Bernard. They were talking about taking a trip to Africa that winter, and Marie-Ange thought it would be fun. And as Christmas approached, they were planning a big party at Marmouton, and another even bigger one after the first of the year, when they occupied the house on the rue de Varenne. Marie-Ange was busy with her babies, and she called Billy a few weeks before Christmas to ask about his wedding plans. She wanted to go back to Iowa to visit him, but it seemed so far away, and there was never time. He teased her and asked if she was already pregnant again. But in a quiet moment at the end of the conversation, he asked if she was all right.
“I'm fine. Why did you ask that?” He always had a sixth sense about her, but she insisted she was fine. She didn't say anything about her meeting with Louise de Beauchamp, out of loyalty to Bernard. And she knew it would have been hard to explain, especially to Billy, who was somewhat suspicious of him.
“I just worry about you, that's all. Don't forget I've never met your husband. How do I know if he's really such a great guy?”
“Trust me,” Marie-Ange smiled at the red-haired, freckled memory of him, “he really is a great guy.” It made her sad to think that she hadn't seen Billy in such a long time. But he was happy for her that she was at Marmouton with her own family. It seemed like poetic justice to him.
“Do you ever hear from your aunt?” Carole was in her eighties by then, and Marie-Ange knew she hadn't been well for a long time. She had just sent her a Christmas card with a photograph of Heloise and Robert, but she didn't think it would mean much to her. She always wrote to Marie-Ange at Christmastime, a terse little note, once a year. And all she ever said was that she hoped that she and her husband were well. She never said much more than that. “Are you still coming to my wedding in June?” Billy asked.
“I'm going to try.”
“My mom says you should bring your kids.” But it was a long way to take them, and if Bernard had his way, she'd be pregnant again by then, although she could travel anyway. But Iowa seemed like part of another world.
They chatted for a little while, and then Bernard came home, and she got off the phone, and went to kiss him hello.
“Who were you talking to?” He was always curious about what she did, who she saw, who she talked to, he enjoyed being part of her life, although he was sometimes more private about his own.
“Billy, in Iowa. He still wants us to come to his wedding in June.”
“That's a long way off,” Bernard smiled. To him the States meant Los Angeles or New York. He had been to Palm Beach a couple of times, but a farm in Iowa was definitely not his style. He had just bought himself a set of matched brown alligator luggage, and Marie-Ange could just imagine him arriving at the Parker farm with his alligator bags in the back of a pickup truck. But she would have liked to go back, and was still promising herself she would someday. She had tried to talk Billy into coming to Marmouton for his honeymoon, and then going to Paris, and had even offered to let him stay at their new house, but he had only laughed at the suggestion. He and Debbi had decided a week at the Grand Canyon was too expensive, and even a weekend in Chicago would be tight for them. France was a whole other life, and only a dream for them. They put every penny they had into the farm.
“What did you do today, my love?” Bernard asked her that night over dinner. They had just hired a cook from town, and it was nice having the extra time with her children, but she missed making dinner for him.
“Nothing much. I was doing some things for our Christmas party, and some shopping. I played with the children.” Heloise had a cold again. “What about you?”
He smiled mysteriously at her. “Actually,” he said, as though waiting for a drum roll to accompany his announcement, “I bought an oil well,” he said, looking pleased, as Marie-Ange frowned at him.
“You did what?” She hoped he was teasing her, but he looked frighteningly sincere.
“I bought an oil well. In Texas, actually. I've been talking to the people selling shares in it for quite a while. It's going to make a fortune when it comes in. They've had some tremendous luck before in Oklahoma.” He beamed at her.
“How did you buy it?” She felt panic rise in her throat as she asked.
“With a promissory note. I know these people very well.”
“How much was it?” She sounded nervous and he looked amused. “How much was your share?”
“It was a bargain. They let me pay for half a share now, with the note, of course, for eight hundred thousand dollars. I don't have to pay the other half till next year.” And she knew by now that he never would. She would be responsible for it, and they would have to borrow more against her trust. Two years before, ten million dollars had seemed like a vast fortune, now she was constantly terrified that they would go broke. In Bernard's hands, ten million dollars disappeared like dust.
“Bernard, we can't afford it. We just finished paying for the house.”
“Darling,” he laughed at her naivete, as he leaned over to kiss her, “you are a very, very rich woman. You have enough money to last forever, and we are going to make a fortune on this. Trust me. I know these men. They've done it before.”
“When do you have to cover the note?”
“By the end of the year,” he said blithely.
“That's in two weeks.” She nearly choked at what he said.
“Believe me, if I could, I'd cover it myself. Your advisers at the bank are going to thank me for doing you a favor,” he said, without batting an eye, and Marie-Ange lay in bed awake, thinking about it, all that night.
In the morning, when she called the bank and told them, her advisers were in no mood to thank Bernard, and for her sake they refused to let her borrow the money against her trust to cover the note. They flatly wouldn't allow it, and at lunch the next day she had no choice but to tell Bernard, and he was enraged.
“My God, how can they be so stupid! And now what do you expect me to do? My word is my honor. They'll think I'm some kind of liar, they might even sue me. I signed the documents two days ago. You knew that, Marie-Ange. You have to tell the bank that they have to pay.”
“I did,” she said grimly, “maybe we should have asked the bank before you signed.”
“You're not a pauper, for God's sake. I'll call them myself tomorrow,” he said, implying that she had handled it badly. But when he called the trust department, they were even more direct with him, and told him in no uncertain terms that her trustees would not allow her to borrow against the trust again. “The doors are closed,” they said. And when he talked to Marie-Ange about it, he was furious with her.
“Did you tell them to do that?” he asked suspiciously, accusing her of double-crossing him.
“Of course not. But we've spent a fortune on both houses,” and he had spent another million dollars or more on art and bad debts from other deals. Her trustees had told her that they were protecting her, and what was left of her fortune, for her own good. She had to think of her future, and her children. And if she couldn't restrain her husband, they were more than willing to do it for her. But Bernard was like a caged animal over it for the next several days. He ranted and raved at her, and behaved like an angry, spoiled child, but there was nothing she could do. They sat through meals in stony silence, and by the weekend, when Bernard came back from a brief trip to Paris, he finally sat down with Marie-Ange in
his study, and told her that in view of her obvious distrust of him, and her bank treating him like a gigolo, obviously at her direction, he was thinking of leaving her. He was not going to tolerate being treated this way, or living in a marriage where he wasn't trusted, and was treated like a child.
“I have had your best interests at heart since we met, Marie-Ange,” he said, looking wounded. “My God, I let you stay here when I didn't even know you, because I knew how much it meant to you. I spent a fortune restoring the chateau because it's a relic of your lost childhood. I bought the house in Paris because I thought you deserved a more exciting life than being hidden away here. I have done nothing but work for you, and for our children, since the day we met. And now I discover that you don't trust me. I cannot live this way anymore.” She was horrified by what she was hearing, and even more so at the thought of losing him. She had two small children, and she might be pregnant again. The idea of his leaving her, and leaving her alone in the world again, with her children, filled her with terror, and made her want to give him everything she had. It also never occurred to her that the expensive restoration he was claiming, she had actually paid for herself, or that the “fortune he had spent” was hers. She had paid for the house in Paris, after he had bought it without even asking her before he made the commitment, just as he had committed to the promissory note for a million six hundred thousand dollars now, without ever asking her.
“I'm sorry, Bernard … I'm sorry …,” she said miserably, “it's not my fault. The bank won't lend me the money.”
“I don't believe you even tried. And it is most certainly your fault,” he said harshly. “These people work for you, Marie-Ange. Tell them what you want. Unless of course you want to humiliate me publicly, and refuse to cover a debt I entered into for you. You're the one who would benefit from this investment, as would Robert and Heloise.” He was everything self-sacrificing and noble as he accused her, and she felt as though she had shot him in the heart. And in return, he was breaking hers.
“They're not my employees, Bernard. They're my trustees, you know that. They make the decisions. I don't.” Her eyes implored him to forgive her for what she couldn't give.
“I also know that you can take them to court, to get what you want, if you want to.” He was the image of injured virtue as he explained it to her.
“Is that what you want me to do?” She looked shocked.
“If you loved me, you would.” He had put it all on the line, but the next day, after Marie-Ange spoke to the bank again, they still refused, and when she threatened them with court, they told her in no uncertain terms that she would lose. They could point out easily how quickly and how recklessly her money had been spent, and they told her that no responsible judge in the world would overturn the trust under those circumstances, for a girl her age. She was only twenty-three, and they knew how grasping Bernard would look in those circumstances, and how suspicious to the court, but they did not say that to her.
And when she reported the conversation to Bernard, he said coldly that he would let her know what he decided to do. But she had been warned. He had already threatened to leave her if she did not cover the debt. And it was a matter of less than two weeks before he had to pay.
She was still beside herself over it the night of their Christmas party, and Bernard hadn't spoken to her in days. He felt humiliated and mistrusted and abused, and he was making her pay for it in spades. And she looked very nervous as she greeted their guests. He looked, as always, elegant, dignified, and cool. He was wearing a new dinner jacket he had had made in London, and a pair of custom-made patent leather shoes. He was always exquisitely dressed, and she was wearing a red satin gown he had bought her at Dior. But she felt anything but festive, and she was worried sick that he would leave her by the end of the year, when she couldn't cover his debt. He acted hurt that she didn't feel he was doing everything for her.
He said not a word to her as they led their guests into the dining room for dinner, and later on when the music struck up, he danced with every woman in the room, save his wife. It was a painful evening for Marie-Ange, in every way.
And all but the last guests had left, when someone in the kitchen commented that they smelled smoke in the house. Alain Fournier, their caretaker, was washing dishes in the kitchen, and helping the caterers clean up, and he said he'd take a look around to see what it was. At first the caterers insisted it was the oven they were cleaning, and someone thought it might be the candles lit throughout the house, or the cigars the guests had smoked. But just to be on the safe side, Alain wandered upstairs to look around. And on the second floor, he found a candle that had leaned too far toward the heavy new damask curtains. The tassels on the curtains had caught fire quickly, and one whole side of the curtains was on fire when he came upstairs.
Alain tore it off the rod, threw it on the floor, and stamped it out, but only then did he notice that the row of fringe at the top of the curtains had carried the flames to the other side, and now they were blazing too as he began to shout, but no one heard. He tried desperately to put the fire out before it spread any further, but because of the music downstairs, his cries for help were drowned out, and like a nightmare, the flames danced from one curtain to another, and within what seemed like instants, the entire second-floor hallway was on fire, and the flames were darting toward the stairs.
And without knowing what else to do, he rushed back downstairs to the kitchen, and told them to bring buckets and water and come upstairs to help, as one of the caterers ran to call the fire department, and then into the living room to warn the remaining guests. And the moment Marie-Ange heard it, she ran upstairs, heading for the second floor hall, where Alain was throwing water at the flames. By the time they got there, the fabric on the walls leading from the second floor to the third had created a tunnel of flame, but she knew she had to go through it, since both her children were asleep upstairs. But as she attempted to pass through the flames, powerful arms held her back. The men who had come up from the kitchen to fight the fire knew she would turn into a human torch in her billowing red dress, as the walls blazed.
“Let go of me!” she said, screaming at them, and trying to fight her way past them. But before she could wrench herself free of them, she saw Bernard run past her, and he was already at the top of the stairs as she pushed free of the men and ran up the stairs as quickly as she could behind him. She could see the door to the nursery just ahead of them, and the hallway was already full of smoke, as she saw him pick the baby up and then run into the room where Heloise was sleeping in her own crib. Heloise woke the moment she heard her parents, and Marie-Ange reached down and grabbed her. They could hear the roar of the fire by then, and downstairs she could hear people shouting. And as Marie-Ange looked behind her, she saw the stairs to the third floor alight with flame, and she knew that the windows on the third floor were tiny. Unless they could get back downstairs through the flames, there would be no escaping, and she looked at Bernard in desperation.
“I'll get help,” he said, looking panicked, “you stay with the children. The firemen are coming, Marie-Ange. If you have to, go to the roof and wait there!” And then, he set Robert down in Heloise's crib and made a dash down the stairs, as Marie-Ange watched him in terror. He stopped for only an instant on his way down, at the door to the roof, and as she watched him, she saw him slip the key to the door into his pocket, and she screamed after him to throw the key back to her, but he only turned once at the foot of the stairs, and vanished, gone to get help, she was sure, but he had left her alone on the third floor with her babies, in a sea of flames.
Bernard had told her he didn't want her to try to get through the flames on the stairs, she was safer waiting upstairs, he'd said. But as she watched the flames drawing closer to them, she knew he was wrong, and it was small consolation as she heard sirens in the distance. Both her children were crying by then, and the baby was gasping in the thick smoke that had begun to choke them. She was expecting to see firemen, or B
ernard with a bucket brigade, coming up the stairs to save them at any moment. She couldn't hear the voices downstairs anymore, the roar of the fire was too loud, and a moment later she heard an enormous crash, and when she looked, she saw that a beam had fallen and was blocking the stairway. And there was still no sign of Bernard coming back to them, as she sobbed, and held both her babies.
She put them in Heloise's crib for a moment, and ran to check the door to the roof, but it was locked, and Bernard had taken the key with him. And suddenly she remembered a voice in her head, and a scarred face, and everything Louise de Beauchamp had said to her. It was all true, she realized instantly. He had tried to lock them in her son's room. And now he had left her here, with no access to the roof, and no way to escape the fire and save her children.
“It's all right, babies. It's all right,” she said murmuring frantically to them, running from one small round window to another, and then as she looked out one of them, she saw him standing there, down below in the courtyard, sobbing hysterically and waving his arms in their direction. He was describing something to the people below, and shaking his head, and she could just imagine now what he was saying, perhaps that he had seen them dead, or that there was no way for him to get to them, which was true now, but it hadn't been when he left them, and slipped the key to the roof into his pocket.
She opened all the windows she could, so they could breathe fresh air, and then rushed from room to room as embers fell and pieces of flaming wood flew all around them. And suddenly, she remembered a tiny bathroom they never used. It was the only room on the third floor with a slightly bigger window, and when she got to it, she saw that it could open. She rushed back to Heloise's room and grabbed both of them, and then rushed back to the bathroom and began screaming from the open window.
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