I was determined that Vivienne and I would have tea outside in the garden today. I had told Hubert as much. He had agreed that it was warm enough, and I could see him now from my bedroom window. He was arranging cushions on a garden seat, and Josie, the maid, was covering a small table with a white linen cloth.
Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was 3:45. Vivienne would be here promptly at four. She was never late.
“Could I ask you something rather personal, Countess Zoë?” Vivienne said carefully, her head cocked to one side, her eyes smiling.
“You can ask me anything Vivienne,” I said, “And I’ll certainly answer you if I can.”
“Are you French?”
“Yes, I am. Why?”
“You speak such perfect English, but I detect a slight accent. It’s one I can’t place. And you don’t sound like most French people do when they’re speaking English. I just wondered if you had been born somewhere else?”
“How clever of you to pick that up. You must have a good ear.”
“So you’re not French then,” she asserted.
“Yes, I am, by nationality, Vivienne. I became a French citizen many, many years ago. But I was born in America. Of Irish parentage, actually. My mother and father emigrated to America with their parents when they were small children. They both grew up in New York. They met each other there and married.”
“How amazing! You’re an Irish-American, then.”
I nodded and said, “Originally, yes. But why do you sound so surprised?”
“You’re so French. You have such chic, such great style, what I call true French style, the way you look and dress, and yet you’re not French at all—” She cut herself off and shook her head. “I shouldn’t say that! Of course you’re French. After years of living here, absorbing the culture, the mores and manners of the French, and being married to a Frenchman, how could you not be.”
“Funnily enough I feel very French, Vivienne. And what you’re hearing in my voice is a slight lilt I think. The Irish lilt I picked up from my mother when I was growing up. But do you know, I didn’t even realize it was still in evidence when I spoke English.”
“It’s faint, but it’s there,” she answered.
“Let me explain. When I first came to Paris I fell in love with the city, long before I met Édouard and fell in love with him. I knew I wanted to live here, nowhere else would do for me, once I’d seen the city of light. So I immediately started to take French lessons, knowing that I must speak the language if I was going to settle in Paris. I’m glad I stayed. France has been good to me. I’ve never regretted moving here.”
“Did you come to France from America?” Vivienne asked.
“No, from London. I had been living there through the war years.” I picked up the teapot and filled her cup and then my own.
“Thank you,” she said, sat back in the wrought-iron garden chair, and glanced around the garden. It seemed to me that she was lost in thought.
I studied her. She appeared to be preoccupied, as if she were troubled, and after a moment, I said, “Are you all right? Is everything all right with you, Vivienne?”
“Yes, of course, why are you asking?”
“You look so very preoccupied, even a little worried,” I replied.
“Countess Zoë . . . there is something I feel I must say. I was going to mention it yesterday, but it was already getting late and I didn’t want to tire you. I hesitate to bring it up even now.”
“You can. I’m perfectly fine,” I reassured her. “I told you earlier, the medicine has worked wonders for me in the last twenty-four hours. So why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind? Why don’t you unburden yourself?”
“It’s like this—” She stopped somewhat abruptly, sighed and looked away, but eventually she brought her gaze back to mine.
Her clear, green eyes were filled with such intelligence, candor, and honesty they almost took my breath away.
She said in a low, serious voice, “There’s something I want to tell you, to explain.”
I nodded.
“Last Tuesday, when I first met you, I was very drawn to you. In the hour I was here, I felt as if I knew you, as if I’d always known you. When you collapsed I wanted to help you. I couldn’t bear to see you suffering. I’ve been coming to see you ever since because I cared. As we’ve talked these past few days, and come to know each other, it’s seemed to me that there’s a bond between us. It’s hard to explain, because we did meet only a week ago. But I really mean what I say. I do feel close to you, Countess Zoë.”
“I know you do, Vivienne, and I feel that way myself. There is a bond. As though something is pulling us closer together.” I patted her hand. “I wish we’d met a long time ago. You’re a very special young woman, Vivienne, and you’ve become quite dear to me in only a few days. I want you to know that you’ve been a comfort to me this past week. You have helped me to pull through that little crisis.”
“I’m so glad!” she exclaimed, looking pleased, and took hold of my hand, held it tightly in hers for a moment.
“You remind me so much of Ariel,” I confided, smiling at her. “I wish you had known each other. I think you would have been friends. Good friends.”
“That’s what Sebastian wanted, Countess Zoë. He said that last October when he told me he was going to marry her. He’d hoped I would be spending Christmas in Connecticut. He wanted me to meet Ariel then, and he was so disappointed when I explained I was going to be in France. He said he would bring her to Lourmarin in the new year, that he knew we would like each other, that we’d love each other when we met. He explained that he wanted me to be at their wedding in the spring. Actually, I had a strong suspicion he wanted to have it at Vieux Moulin.”
“And how would you have really felt about that, if he had suggested it?” I asked, my eyes resting on her thoughtfully.
“I would have been pleased,” she responded. “And I would have made them very welcome, given them a lovely wedding. I genuinely cared about him. He was my only family. But then you know that.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “I do.”
“Countess Zoë?”
“Yes, Vivienne?” I looked at her alertly, detecting something different in her voice. I braced myself.
“I don’t want to upset you, and I know you know that. I truly hope you don’t think I’ve been coming to see you this past week because I have an ulterior motive. And, I’m quite certain you accept that I’m very sincere in all that I’ve just said to you. But I have to ask you something.”
“Then ask me, my dear.”
“I would still like to meet Ariel. Won’t you arrange that for me, please, Countess Zoë?”
“Vivienne, I cannot.”
“An hour, two at the most, that’s all I need with her. I could fly to Zaire. Talk to her for a short while, and then leave. I’d leave immediately, you have my promise. Please” she pleaded.
“Vivienne, no. I cannot arrange it.”
“What harm would it do?” she asked.
“More than you could possibly imagine!” I exclaimed and hated the fact that my voice had risen sharply, but I couldn’t help myself.
Swiftly, I went on more softly, “When Ariel heard the news of Sebastian Locke’s death she was devastated. She was ill for several weeks. A little later she even took herself out of her own research project, for her own safety. She was slow in recovering from the news of his death and she was afraid she might make an error in her experiments with the virus that could cost lives. His death affected her very deeply. And to have you go there now, only seven months later, to interrogate her, to ask questions about their relationship, about his demeanor, attitude, and mental state in the last few weeks of his life would only open up wounds. Wounds that have just begun to heal. The kind of work Ariel does is so stressful, so dangerous, I don’t want her to be distracted by any emotional upsets.”
I paused and looked at Vivienne intently. “Try to see it from my point of view, my dear. I
want Ariel to be absolutely concentrated on her work, so that she doesn’t make any fatal mistakes. In short, I want her left alone. By you. By anyone else who might cause her more grief. There’s nothing she can tell you that you don’t already know. You can write your profile without meeting her, please believe me you can.”
“I understand how you feel, Countess Zoë, understand everything you’re saying. I’ve only persisted about seeing her because I thought Ariel might have a clue.”
“A clue?” I repeated.
“Yes, a clue why he killed himself.”
“I doubt it very much. She can’t give you an explanation about his death, Vivienne.”
“She loved him, he loved her, and he was so happy that last week of his life,” Vivienne murmured. “Really happy, Countess Zoë.” She looked at me and shook her head. Her expression was sad. “I knew him so well, and for so long, there was no way he could ever have fooled me. Not about anything. That awful gloominess, that moroseness of his, was absent. He was positively glowing. So why would he want to kill himself when he was on cloud nine and planning to marry your daughter?”
“Vivienne dear, listen to me. No one ever really knows why people do these awful, tragic things to themselves, take such terrible and irrevocable steps.”
“His suicide has never made sense to me,” Vivienne said softly, almost to herself. “The reason I wanted to see Ariel was because I had hoped she might be able to help me understand it.”
“How would she have been able to do that?”
“I’ve always had an uncanny feeling that Ariel was somehow involved. Please don’t misunderstand, Countess Zoë, I mean indirectly involved. I know she was in Africa when he took his life in Connecticut.”
“But why do you think she would know anything?” I probed.
“Because his relationship with her was the only thing in his life that was new, different. His lifestyle was very predictable. His pattern didn’t change very much. For years he had lived the same way.”
“And how was that?” I asked curiously.
“He went from Manhattan to the farm in Connecticut, and then back to Africa. Or to some other part of the world where he felt he was needed. He did his work there, returned to the States, stayed a while, attended to business at the foundation and Locke Industries, and went off again. But then he met Ariel in Zaire. He fell in love, made plans to marry her, but suddenly killed himself. To me there is something very strange at work here. I believe that something unusual occurred that week he was in New York. Between the Monday when we had lunch and the Saturday when he killed himself. But it’s a mystery I can’t begin to imagine what it was.”
“Maybe his life had simply become unbearable,” I suggested quietly.
“What do you mean by that, Countess Zoë?”
“Isn’t that why people kill themselves, Vivienne? Because their lives have become unbearable. They simply don’t want to live any longer,” I ventured.
Vivienne was silent. I could feel her pain.
After a moment she leaned forward, gave me a penetrating look, and said, “I want to explain something else to you, Countess Zoë. I loved Sebastian from the age of twelve. I will always love him, and part of me will always belong to him. But writing the profile of him is not very important to me in the long run. It was an excuse in a way. When I got the idea, I ran with it, thinking that it might help me to understand his death, even come to grips with it. Oh yes, it would be satisfying to write lovely things about him. But there is something much more pressing than my hero worship of him.”
She paused, took a breath and went on, “I’ve always had the need to know why Sebastian Locke took his life. For myself. It was an act so out of character, so alien to his nature. And I won’t have any peace of mind until I know. I think it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I needed to solve this terrible riddle right from the beginning, which is when I got the idea for doing the profile. I thought that talking to people who had known him might help, that I might eventually turn up the truth. And that’s really why I wanted to see your daughter. Not to write about their relationship. But, selfishly, for my peace of mind.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Vivienne. Ariel was just as perplexed as you, baffled by his suicide. And perhaps one day you will meet her, when her wounds have healed completely.”
Vivienne nodded, let out a deep sigh, then she said in a low voice, “I just want to close this book and move forward, Countess Zoë, get on with my life.”
“I understand your motivations and what drives you. And don’t think for a moment that I’m angry, because I’m not. But I must say again that whatever you might think, my daughter couldn’t possibly enlighten you.”
“You sound so sure.”
“I am.”
Vivienne’s tone was deflated when she said, “You were my only chance. I thought you were the one person who could help me get to the truth of it all through Ariel. I thought she held the key.”
For a moment I could not think. My mind froze. I simply sat there in my beautiful garden, shivering slightly from the light breeze now blowing up, staring into those unflinching, honest green eyes that held mine.
And as I looked into the lovely face of this sincere young woman I made a momentous decision.
I knew she had integrity, that honor was an essential part of her character, and so I knew in my bones that I could trust her.
I rose. “Let us go inside, Vivienne dear. It’s growing chilly,” I said.
She nodded and stood up, took hold of my arm solicitously, and helped me into the house.
Once we were seated in the small salon, I leaned back against the soft cushions of the sofa and regarded her for the longest moment.
Finally, taking a deep breath, I said, “I am going to tell you a tale, a familiar tale that’s as ancient as the hills . . . a tale of a man, a woman, and another man . . .”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“I was twenty-eight and a rich young widow when I visited Paris for the first time, Vivienne.
“Paris instantly captivated me and I decided to move permanently to France. For numerous reasons, I was determined to leave London for good. Suffice it to say that I believed it to be imperative for my well-being to do so.
“After several weeks in Paris I returned to London, put my house in Mayfair and its contents up for sale, gave my solicitors power of attorney to deal with my business affairs, and returned without delay to France.
“Within several weeks I had rented a furnished apartment on the rue Jacob on the Left Bank, hired a student to teach me the language, and begun my search for a proper dwelling place, one of charm, elegance, and permanence. My French teacher, a young woman of good family, was instrumental in helping me to find the perfect apartment on the Avenue de Breteuil—large, airy, and light-filled. Whilst it was being appropriately decorated and furnished I settled down to my studies, and at the same time acclimatized myself to Paris and the French way of life.
“Even though I say this myself, I was quite beautiful when I was young, Vivienne. I had great allure. I suppose that is the best word to use. My looks were glamorous, not so much exotic as lush. Men found me irresistible. I did not lack male companionship in Paris, and I had plenty of escorts to take me everywhere I wished to go.
“But I was well aware that women and not men were the key to my success in local society Only women could propel me into the proper circles. Men might admire me, flatter me, lust after me, wine and dine me, and fall in love with me. However, it was women who could open all the right doors; it has always been women the world over who run the social scene, make the decisions, and issue the invitations. They can either make or break another woman, especially a newcomer to a city.
“I had no intention of allowing any doors to remain shut or be slammed in my face. Nor did I plan to let anyone break me. That had been done to me when I was a child. Almost. I would never permit it to happen again.
“Fortunately for me, I had a sponsor, a mentor, if y
ou will, someone I had met in London several years earlier. She was a woman of a certain age and a socialite of some standing, regarded as one of the greatest hostesses in Paris, indeed in France.
“She was of fine lineage in her own right, had married into one of the grand titled families of France, and, like me, she was a widow.
“This accomplished and remarkable woman had been a friend of my first husband, the late Harry Robson. Because of his kindness to her during a most difficult time in her life, and their long-standing friendship, she took me under her wing when I moved to Paris in 1950.
“She was the Baronne Désirée de Marmont, attractive, elegant, charming, and very knowledgeable about everything. It was she who taught me about eighteenth-century fine French furniture, Aubusson and Savonerie rugs, tapestries, porcelain, and art.
“I had developed a good sense of clothes by the time I arrived in Paris, but it was the baroness who imbued in me her own brand of chic, her incomparable stylishness. What you admire in me, that sense of style you’ve commented on, Vivienne, I acquired from Désirée de Marmont.
“The first thing she did was take me to her favorite couturiers, milliners, and shoemakers, saw to it that I was dressed simply but elegantly in the height of fashion. It was her preferred interior designers who helped me to furnish and decorate the new apartment on the Avenue de Breteuil, again under her discerning eye. And it was she who found me the right butler, cook, and housekeeper to run things for me. In short, she supervised every aspect of my life.
“Thus Désirée turned me into a chic and polished young woman with unique style, grace, and sophistication, quite aside from my natural good looks. It was two years after my arrival in Paris that she decided I was ‘finished’ and, therefore, finally ready to be launched into Parisian society as her protégé from London.
Her Own Rules/Dangerous to Know Page 48