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Past Perfect

Page 20

by Danielle Steel


  “Could you go to jail?” she asked him, terrified, and he shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. But I could lose everything we have. I might have done that already.” He looked panicked.

  “What can I do?”

  “I want to talk to Bert again, when he gets home from work.” He had already talked to his investment adviser too, but he wanted to go over it with Bert. “But, Syb, I want to warn you, we may wind up totally out of money.” She nodded, trying to understand just what that would mean to them and their children. What she made curating museum shows and writing articles wouldn’t make a difference. Even her book wouldn’t when she finished it. She had always had the luxury of not worrying about how much she was paid, because he made enough money with his work to support them.

  “Do we need to sell this house?” she asked him quietly, although she would hate to lose it, and the whole family that came with it. They were part of that family now, their lives woven together like a tapestry of past and present. But Blake looked grim when she asked him the question.

  “I think we have a decision to make,” he said honestly. “This is an unusual house and it could take time to sell, to find the right buyer. And we haven’t owned it long. Tribeca would be a faster sale, for more money, but I know how much you love it and the city.” It was like asking her to give up a kidney. But they knew that they could sell it well. Apartments in Tribeca sold for a fortune.

  They both heard the front door close then, and Blake stood up. He knew it was Bert and he wanted to see him. Blake left Sybil alone in their bedroom, as she looked out the window and wondered what would happen now.

  —

  Bert spent hours with Blake that night going over the numbers and agreed that he had to sell the loft in New York or the house in San Francisco to give him the money to cover the shortfall of several million that he was on the hook for.

  “I hate to sell it,” he said about the apartment. “Sybil’s money is in it too.”

  “You might be able to get some of that money back later, but right now you have no choice.” Blake knew he should have listened to Bert months before, but he hadn’t. And now it might be too late to salvage anything. “The men you’re in business with are high-stakes players. Too high. The numbers don’t work, and their assumptions and judgment aren’t sound. Get out of it now, if you can. You can always do something else without them later. You’d be better off without them risking your neck.” Blake knew it was true. “You know what you’re doing.” Blake had been impressed with them, and he had been foolish and naïve, dazzled by them, and now he knew it. And when his gut had told him to get out, he hadn’t followed his instincts, and stayed.

  He thanked Bert for the time he spent with him, and went upstairs with a heavy heart to discuss their options with Sybil. She had the right to make the decision too. But he had to sell something and cover his part of the debts.

  Sybil was waiting for him in their bedroom when he walked in, and she said she had something to tell him.

  “Me too,” he said grimly. “You first?” He was going to tell her that Bert agreed they had to sell the house or the apartment, but he knew that ultimately she wanted to go back to New York.

  “I want us to sell the apartment in Tribeca,” Sybil said. “We’re not going back, even if the business fails. We love it here, and this house. The Butterfields are family now. And we’ll get more money for New York.” She looked totally calm as she said it, and he stared at her in disbelief. She had made the decision while he was with Bert.

  “Are you serious? You won’t regret it?”

  “I want to sell it. I don’t want to go back,” she repeated. “Let’s do it.” He put his arms around her, feeling like an utter failure, but selling their New York apartment would save him. The apartment would give him what he needed to swim free. There were tears in his eyes when he thanked her.

  They called the realtor in New York the next morning and put it on the market at a hefty price, but it was worth it. Blake just hoped it would sell quickly. He wanted to get out of the business now while he still could.

  The New York realtor was delighted to list their Tribeca apartment, and by sheer miracle, it sold in five weeks for a good price. Blake managed to keep a lid on things at work, and Bert helped him almost daily. Blake knew that Bert’s own downfall had come due to a national disaster, not through errors of his own. And with his advice, Sybil’s support, and the sale of their New York apartment, within two months Blake had managed to extricate himself from a potentially disastrous situation and leave the firm. He had lost a considerable amount of money, but he hadn’t lost everything, and they still had the house. And after some careful thought, he decided he wanted to start a business of his own. The damage he had escaped could have been infinitely worse. By Thanksgiving Blake knew he had much to be thankful for, and was enormously relieved. He and Sybil were closer than ever, and he and Bert were almost like brothers.

  Blake told Bert again how grateful he was to him. He was going to let things cool off for a while, and then try something of his own, based on sound principles. He might not make as much as he could have with the geeks, but he wouldn’t lose as much either.

  The apartment in New York was gone, so this really was their home now. Sybil had flown to New York and packed everything at the height of his crisis, and had shipped it all to San Francisco. She had never complained once about the mess Blake had gotten them into, and he was deeply grateful to her too. It had been a harrowing time for both of them. Spending Thanksgiving with the Butterfields was even more meaningful this year. Andy hadn’t been able to get home from Edinburgh since it wasn’t a holiday for them, but Caroline was home with Max, and Andy and Quinne were coming home for Christmas. And Blake was thankful they still had a home to come to. He had escaped total ruin by the skin of his teeth, with Bert’s advice.

  Chapter 16

  After Thanksgiving, Sybil was organizing papers in her office, as she was in the home stretch of her book, and she noticed the box the bank had given her about the Butterfields, with the photographs and Bettina’s book in it. She smiled when she saw it. Nearly three years after they’d bought the house, she knew so much about them, probably even more than Bettina had known when she wrote it. Sybil had the benefit of the present to add to the past, while Bettina could only guess at the future. And she was blissfully happy in Paris with Louis.

  She glanced through the photographs and saw pictures of Lili as a baby, and with Bettina shortly after she was born. Bettina looked so serious and unhappy. She had been so worried about the responsibilities of being a mother, and now she was in love with a wonderful man and protected by him. Her letters from Paris were only happy, after three months of marriage. She felt totally separate now from her life in the States, and believed she would never live there again.

  Sybil found other photographs too, of Magnus and Josiah, Bert and Gwyneth. They’d looked so young when they were married. There was one of Bettina after she bought the house back, after Louis died, in 1950. It was jarring to see it, knowing that they had just gotten married that summer. But in real time, she had married him in the summer of 1919. Sometimes Sybil forgot that she was reliving history with them because the present times she lived with them were so vivid. They existed in another dimension together in addition to the one each family was in, a hundred years apart.

  There was a picture of Gwyneth too, after Bert died in 1930, when Bettina took her to Paris to live with her after they sold the house in San Francisco. Gwyneth looked so ravaged, so lost without him, that it pained Sybil to see it. And when she looked at the date on the back of another photograph, she knew that Gwyneth had died a few months later in 1932. After that, the only ones still alive were Bettina and Lili, and there were no more pictures. And then Sybil thought of something. Bettina had written that Lili got married in France to Raphael Saint Martin, a doctor, after the Second World War. She had a son named Samuel, born in 1946. As far as Sybil knew, Samuel Saint Martin was the
last descendant of Gwyneth and Bert. There were no other heirs, as Bettina had been their only surviving child, Lili Bettina’s only issue, and Samuel Lili’s. He was the end of the line. Sybil wondered what had happened to him, and if he’d had any interest in the house or knew anything about it. His mother had sold it after his grandmother’s death in 1980. Sybil wondered what had happened to him since.

  The bank had said that Lili had sold the house from France without even coming to see it, because she was in ill health. She had inherited it from her mother and disposed of it. Michael Stanton of the Berkeley Psychic Institute had said that Lili probably wasn’t alive when he visited the house. She would have been a hundred and one years old now, and if Samuel was still alive, he would be seventy-three. For the first time, Sybil felt a duty to try to contact him and share his family history with him. Maybe he never knew anything about them, since Lili had no real bond to the house, and in everything Bettina had written in her lifetime, she had admitted that she and Lili had never been close. She blamed herself for it, and Lili’s ties were all in France, and she would have had none of the Butterfield history to pass on to her son.

  Suddenly Sybil knew what her mission was and what she owed them, and wanted to give them. She wanted to reach out to Samuel and tell him about the Butterfield Mansion and the wonderful family who had lived there, and were his heritage too. It was a gift she could give to him, and to Bert and Gwyneth. Samuel Saint Martin was the last link in the chain. She and Blake were the guardians of their history, but Samuel was the rightful heir to it and their stories, their victories and their broken dreams. He had a right to know the truth about all of it, and even to meet them, since the strange phenomenon that existed in the house would allow him to, if he wanted to and was willing. And if they were. He could meet Augusta, his great-great-grandmother, and his great-uncle Magnus, his great-great-uncle Angus, and Bert and Gwyneth, his great-grandparents, and Sybil knew she had to pass it on to him. She could be the bridge between the Butterfields she knew and their last descendant. All she had to do was find him, if she could. And then he had to believe it was possible for him to meet them, and not that she was some lunatic who had imagined it, or was lying to make herself interesting. She wasn’t sure how to convince him, if she found him, but she wanted to try. She had a strong sense that when Bettina had bought the house back after Louis’s death, she had lived with her family around her in the same spiritual dimension where they existed now, and where Sybil saw them every day. They had probably populated Bettina’s final years in the same way until she died. So she was never alone or lonely in her final years, and had returned to the comfort of her youth.

  And somewhere in the world was Lili’s son, who had a rich history he probably knew nothing about, but deserved to at least learn as the Butterfields’ final blood relative. She felt powerfully that Bert and Gwyneth and even his grandmother Bettina would have wanted that. Sybil was the only one who could give him that now, or at least offer it to him. She not only knew their history, she had lived it with them. They had entrusted it to her by being so open with her and her family, and she wanted to share it with Samuel now.

  Chapter 17

  With a feeling of trepidation, and after thinking all night about it and whether it was the right thing to do, Sybil started searching for Samuel Saint Martin the next day. All she knew about him was the minor mention of him in Bettina’s book, as Lili’s son.

  His father, Raphael, had been a doctor, and if he and Lili had other children, Bettina didn’t mention them in the book.

  Sybil didn’t know what was pushing her to look for him, and she didn’t tell anyone about it. It might be a dead end, anyway. He might have died. Or the Butterfields could refuse to meet him. Lili hadn’t been part of their lives once Bettina moved to France and she was a baby then. Her seventy-three-year-old son might just seem too remote to them. They lived within the confines of the house and the grounds and the world they had known, with the family members they had lived with for more than a century. Samuel might not seem part of the family to them. But Sybil could feel something beckoning her as she began her search.

  She found him on Facebook in less than an hour, if it was the right person. It had been startlingly easy, and his age matched up. She had nothing else to go on. His Facebook page said that he was a history professor at the Sorbonne, he lived in the fifth arrondissement on the Left Bank in Paris, which wasn’t far from Saint-Germain, and Sybil was desperately curious about him and wanted to know more. She had a burning sense that this was important without knowing why.

  She was composing an email to him on her computer that afternoon when Gwyneth walked into the room. She had come to finish a drawing she had started.

  “What are you doing?” She was bored and missed Bettina, and hadn’t had a letter from her in a week. Bettina was busy reorganizing her new home and enjoying their busy social life. She had written that she loved being married and having a home of her own, and not just living with her parents.

  “Looking for your great-grandson,” Sybil said seriously, looking distracted.

  “Very funny.” Gwyneth thought it was a joke.

  “No, really. I know that makes no sense, but it’s one of those time-dimension things I can’t explain, it just is.”

  Gwyneth nodded. She knew it happened to them, but it confused her, so she tried not to think about it, about who was dead and who wasn’t, and who wasn’t really the age that they seemed, who was past and who was future. It was much easier to take it at face value. And Sybil was more interested in it than she was. Bert didn’t like her to talk about it, and had forbidden her to tell anyone.

  “So I have a great-grandson?” she asked, looking uncomfortable. Bert wouldn’t have liked her asking questions about the future, even if Sybil knew the answers, particularly if she did.

  “Yes, you do. Lili’s son,” Sybil said. It seemed harmless to tell her, as long as she didn’t warn her of the tragedies that would come and no one could alter.

  “Shouldn’t you be working on your book?” Gwyneth said to change the subject.

  “Don’t remind me. I’m taking a break.” Sybil smiled at her. “I’m almost finished.”

  “Do you know where he is? My great-grandson, I mean.” Gwyneth was curious about it, even if she knew she shouldn’t be. They both knew it was dangerous to pry into the future, and they were usually careful not to and respectful of the privilege they had.

  “Sort of. If he’s the right one, he’s a history professor at the Sorbonne. That’s all I really know. The rest is guesswork. And maybe he won’t give a damn about any of you or your history if I find him, but I figured that you or Bettina or someone, maybe your mother, would want me to reach out to him, to tell him about all of you, so you could meet him if you want to.” And he’d have to be willing to come to San Francisco if so. It was all a long shot for now.

  “I think that would be nice,” Gwyneth said, smiling at her. “We’re all still here. He might as well know about us.” And then she looked shyly at Sybil. “Sometimes I think we’re here because of you. Maybe without you, if you and Blake hadn’t bought the house, we wouldn’t be in our home anymore.” It was one of those rare times when one of them admitted that the way they all existed, including her and Blake, wasn’t entirely normal, and had defied what was possible for other people.

  “I don’t think that’s true. I think you’d be here anyway. I think you’re all so attached to the house and your life together, you’ll never leave,” Sybil said honestly. “You were all here when we arrived. We just found you. We didn’t bring you back.” Sybil took no credit for it, and what she said was true. She smiled warmly at Gwyneth. The two women had a powerful tie of love and friendship and had been through a lot together.

  “Do you ever get tired of us?” Gwyneth asked, since they had opened a forbidden subject, and Sybil laughed.

  “Never, except when Angus plays the bagpipes.” They both laughed. Sybil turned back to her computer then. “I’m tryi
ng to find this guy’s phone number. Maybe I should just call Paris information.” She did, as Gwyneth listened to her, marveling at modern communications when they gave it to her, as simple as that. A moment later, when Sybil turned to say something to her, Gwyneth had vanished, to check on Magnus and make sure he wasn’t up to mischief. And she didn’t want to intrude on the call.

  Magnus had been rambunctious lately. Charlie was getting more homework and couldn’t play as often, or for as long. It made Sybil wonder if she was damaging her children, allowing them to grow up with people who no longer existed in the present, and facilitating their living together as friends. But the Butterfields had enriched their lives in so many ways. She didn’t know what they would tell their children about it. What had Bettina told Lili? Did Lili know? Or did Bettina simply live with her family and never tell her daughter of the unusual phenomena in the house? And would Lili have believed her or thought her senile and dismissed it as an old woman’s fantasies or some form of dementia, living in the past? Sybil was sure that Bettina had come back in order to find them all again, after Louis died. And now Sybil didn’t want to leave the house either, nor did Blake or their children. She couldn’t imagine living without the Butterfields anymore. They were an important part of each other’s lives.

 

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