Paradise Found

by Dorothy Vernon

  But he hadn’t understood. Oh, Matt, those wretched years . . . The thought of him lying hurt in hospital and her not being there with him tore at her heart. She cried for the hopelessness of it all.

  She dried her eyes. It wasn’t hopeless at all. She had to end her engagement to Tony. Her feelings for him had never been strong enough. He hadn’t been able to stamp Matt out of her heart. There wasn’t a man alive who could do that. And then she had to go back home and seek Matt out. And they had to talk. Perhaps nothing would come of it, but they had to talk.

  Camille and her grandfather, André Dupont, were coming to dinner. The tangle of her own personal life would have to be put away for the time being. She had to get ready, then put on a bright smile, and do nothing to cast a shadow on the evening’s festivities.

  She used extra makeup to counteract the natural sparkle that was missing and managed to get back downstairs minutes prior to the arrival of the guests. Hannah liked the courtesy of everyone being there for the greeting.

  Camille was looking especially beautiful. There was something about her, a glow that didn’t come from makeup but was born from within. Yet at the same time there was something about her that undermined that look of well-being. She had forsaken her favorite red and wore a dress of sharp citrus yellow which showed off her luscious curves to perfection.

  Zoe turned her eyes to Camille’s grandfather. Rich, distinguished, and handsome, André Dupont doted on Camille and would obviously tear the earth apart to grant her smallest whim. Some would say ‘lucky Camille,’ but Zoe wasn’t so sure. The most precious things in life had to be given freely. They become valueless when bought for hard cash.

  Would Hannah and Monsieur Dupont ever make a match? she wondered. She had known Hannah for a short time, yet she felt deeply a part of her life. It was odd to think that in ending her engagement to Tony, if things didn’t work out between her and Matt, she would become nothing to Hannah and might never see her again. It was an unhappy, chilling thought. She dared not pin her hopes on making a future with Matt. In explaining what had happened five years ago, Hannah had said he’d lost the girl he loved. But had Matt said that in so many words, or had Hannah romanticized Matt’s feelings and made that assumption herself? Matt had never told her that he loved her. He wanted her in a physical way, he had never made any bones about that, but love was another matter entirely.

  ‘What a very deep look.’

  Zoe turned to André Dupont, who had made the remark, and was sitting next to her at the table. ‘I’m sorry, Monsieur. I was miles away.’

  ‘Really? I should have thought only inches,’ he said, referring to the fact that Tony was sitting on her other side. ‘Being in love is not the simple state the popular ballads lead us to believe. It can be a complex and traumatic business.’

  It was an observation that followed her own life too closely and invited Zoe’s sharp intake of breath, but then it occurred to her that Monsieur Dupont was talking to her in an abstract fashion and that his eyes were on his granddaughter.

  His concentration directed her own gaze there. She saw the smile die on Camille’s lips and noticed the glazed look in the girl’s eyes before her lashes fluttered down, and then Camille folded like a rag doll and with boneless grace slid to the floor.

  Zoe had never seen anyone faint so beautifully. At first no one seemed to realize what had happened, and then everyone moved of one accord. Tony was hampered by his crutches, but between them Zoe and André Dupont managed to transfer Camille to the sofa. She came round almost immediately, looking bewildered and obviously wondering what all the commotion was about.

  ‘You fainted,’ Hannah explained gently.

  ‘What a silly thing to do!’ Camille still looked confused, despite the laugh that came to her lips.

  ‘Perhaps I should take you home,’ André Dupont said with some perplexity, not seeming to know what would be best.

  ‘But, grandpapa, why? I’m all right now,’ Camille protested.

  ‘I’ve never known you to faint before,’ he said, his eyes appealing to Hannah for guidance.

  ‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Camille replied nonchalantly. ‘Honestly, grandpapa, I feel wonderful, so don’t fuss.’

  ‘Young girls do have these peculiar turns, André. I wouldn’t attach too much importance to the matter, if I were you,’ Hannah comforted.

  André’s gaze rested on Camille, who now seemed quite recovered; her color was back to normal, and she was preening herself in a manner that suggested she was enjoying the attention. His anxiety lifted. ‘Yes, I suppose you are right. It would be a pity to curtail such a very pleasant evening.’

  ‘Good.’ Hannah’s tone was brisk. ‘Let’s return to the table.’

  The incident was forgotten and not referred to again until the guests’ departure.

  After depositing goodbye kisses on both of Hannah’s cheeks, Camille said, ‘Thank you for a perfect meal and a lovely time.’ Then she added apologetically, ‘I’m sorry to have caused that little stir during dinner.’

  ‘You must not give it another thought, mon enfant. These things happen. You might telephone me tomorrow to set my mind at rest that all is well with you.’

  ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll come round, if I may, and then you can see for yourself.’

  ‘You are always welcome here, you know that.’

  As André Dupont took his leave of her, Hannah said, her voice as light as a summer breeze, ‘Just as a precaution, why not let Camille be seen by her doctor?’

  ‘I am sure it is nothing, but perhaps that is not such a bad idea.’ There was no alarm in the dark eyes that dipped over the hand. Hannah offered for his parting kiss.

  * * *

  Why it came as a surprise, Zoe would never know. All the clues were there, and yet, as Hannah replaced the telephone receiver the next day, Zoe had no idea of what was coming.

  ‘That was André,’ Hannah explained. ‘The doctor has just examined Camille. It seems, after all, that André will get his long desired liaison with our family, if not in quite the way he had wished. I don’t know how to tell you this, Zoe. I’m very, very sorry, my dear. But Camille is pregnant.’

  Camille pregnant. Liaison between the two families. Just who, exactly, was Hannah saying the father was?

  ‘I must telephone Matt,’ Hannah said, turning back to the telephone, lifting the receiver, dialing. ‘He’ll get here on the first available flight.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Camille having Matt’s child? But Camille was only nineteen, Zoe told herself. Still, what did that have to do with it? Anyway, Zoe had only been nineteen when it had almost happened between them. She wished it had. She wished fiercely that they had made love and a child had resulted . . . Matt’s child. She felt sick and miserable and jealous of the new life stirring in Camille. If anyone was to have Matt’s baby, it should have been she.

  ‘I’m even sorrier than I thought,’ she heard Hannah say as though from a long way away. ‘I honestly didn’t think you cared all that much.’

  ‘Not care?’ She faced Hannah, eyes blazing. ‘I love him. I’ve never loved anyone else, and I never will, as long as I live.’

  ‘Oh, my dear. If I’m surprised, it’s because you haven’t shown it. Sometimes you’ve appeared quite cool toward him.’

  ‘It’s had to be that way,’ Zoe said wearily.

  ‘Tony won’t be able to marry you now, you do realize that, of course. The right thing must be done.’

  She would do the right thing. She couldn’t admit to loving another man and go ahead and marry Tony. ‘I’ll release him from our engagement, of course.’

  ‘The marriage will have to be arranged as quickly as possible, and quietly. But not too quietly, because that would defeat the object by arousing gossip. Camille has no sisters of her own to take precedence. I don’t know how you feel about this, but on the phone André hinted that it might be a kindness on your part to be Camille’s chief bridesmaid. It would go a
long way to stop the tongues wagging.’

  ‘No, Hannah. I couldn’t! That’s asking too much of me.’

  ‘Perhaps when you’ve thought about it . . . Hannah entreated.

  ‘No!’ Bitter tears filled Zoe’s eyes. ‘Why should I? I can’t forgive what Matt and Tony have done to me. Between them they’ve just about destroyed me. Neither of them really cared about me. They used me to settle a difference.’

  ‘I’m deeply disappointed in you, Zoe,’ Hannah chided frostily. ‘Which is something I never thought I’d hear myself say to you. That remark is beneath your intelligence and an insult to my son. It might be true of Tony, but not of Matt. Matt does not use people.’

  ‘You’re right, Hannah. That was unworthy of me and I take it back. Matt doesn’t use people.’

  ‘I knew some drama was being played out among the three of you, but I couldn’t make a lot of sense of it. Still can’t, for that matter. You and Matt seemed to know one another too well to have met only recently through Tony. I kept getting strong signals that you’d known each other before. You could even be the girl he lost five years ago. You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t have thrown him over because he couldn’t give me the good times. I would have stuck by him, no matter what. I thought he’d walked out on me. I didn’t know he’d been involved in an accident until you. told me. You’ve got to believe that.’

  ‘I do believe it.’ A small sigh escaped Hannah’s lips. ‘It’s Matt you should be telling, not me. Although if you meant what you said earlier, and much as I would like to I can’t doubt your sincerity, I don’t suppose there would be much point. I must be losing my grip, because I could have sworn that you and . . . well, never mind.’

  What was the matter with Hannah? Wasn’t she thinking straight? Of course there would be no point now.

  The other thing Hannah had said was right about Matt not using people. When he had taken her in his arms it had been because he wanted to and not to score off Tony. But he had also made love to Camille, and Camille was carrying his child and so he had an obligation to marry her. She could understand any man finding Camille irresistible, she was luscious and inviting, but why hadn’t Matt resisted?

  Zoe had known from the beginning that Camille had lost her innocence, and she was pretty certain that Matt hadn’t been the one to take it away from her in the first place. When she was nineteen, he had known by instinct that she had never been with a man, and some rigid moral code had stopped him at the last moment. Oh, Matt, why? The odd thing was, she didn’t know if she was asking herself why Matt hadn’t made love to her then or why he’d had to go with Camille now.

  A glass of water was placed in her hand. Hannah gently coaxed, ‘Here, drink this, although really I think it should be brandy. You’ve gone as white as a sheet. I shouldn’t have spoken so sharply to you just now. I didn’t make allowances for your suffering.’

  On taking a sip, Zoe said, ‘Please don’t be too nice to me, Hannah, you’ll make me cry. I don’t want to go soggy-eyed to Tony to return his ring, and that’s something I must do straight away.’

  ‘Yes, dear. I’m sorry, sorry for all of us, that things haven’t worked out the way you wanted. I’m even sorrier still that they haven’t worked out the way I would have liked,’ Hannah added ambiguously.

  ‘Thank you, Hannah.’ What else could she say. ‘I’ll go find Tony.’

  But first she went up to her room for the box the ring had come in from the jeweler’s shop. She put the ring in the box, then placed the box in an envelope on which she wrote: I’m sorry it had to be like this, Tony. The contents will explain it all. No words necessary. Then she went downstairs to find him.

  He was where he usually was, in the garden. She handed him the bulky envelope. He accepted it, read what she’d written on the front, and tore it open. Shrugging, he put the ring box in his pocket.

  ‘Good old never-make-a-fuss Zoe!’ he scoffed, a look of bravado coming to his face. ‘It never ceases to amaze me the calm way you take things. I expected fireworks and recriminations.’

  That’s what Zoe had expected from him. ‘What for, Tony?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘For giving you such a rotten deal, of course. I’m sorry. God, how inadequate that sounds, but it’s true. I’m sorry for you, and selfish to the end, I’m just a little bit sorry for myself. Quite recently Nan remarked that I was a better person for knowing you, and I think she’s right. If we’d stuck together you might have reformed me totally. As it is, well, Camille and I are out of the same mold. And you could say that I’ve landed on my feet. André Dupont is comfortably off. Camille is his only grandchild and will inherit the lot. On reflection, my position is really quite enviable.’ Suddenly he dropped the light, jocular tone to ask, ‘So why don’t I feel better about things?’

  Zoe hardly dared to believe the implication of Tony’s words. Was he saying that he was the father of Camille’s child, not Matt? All she could feel was stunned incredulity.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, her words reflecting her perplexity: ‘You tell me why you don’t feel better about things.’

  ‘Because I think I was falling in love with you.’

  ‘Weren’t you in love with me when you asked me to marry you? The truth, Tony. You owe me that.’

  ‘Yes, I guess I do. And so, no I wasn’t in love with you. I was attracted to you, and I want you to know that my affection for you has steadily grown, but my main reason was wanting to triumph over Matt.’

  ‘But you weren’t aware that I knew Matt. Or were you?’

  ‘Yes, I knew. Have you found out yet why Matt didn’t come back to you five years ago?’

  ‘Yes. Hannah told me about his accident.’ She gasped. ‘You knew! You knew there was a girl in his life. You’ve known all this time that I was that girl. And you let me go on thinking that he didn’t return because he didn’t want me, even though you and I had talked about it.’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Zoe. I didn’t have to tell you now, and I’m only doing so to try to make amends. I knew all about the message you got to the effect that Matt wasn’t available when you phoned to ask about him. That message came via me. I visited Matt in hospital and he told me to instruct the staff to say what they did should you inquire.’

  ‘Matt thought he had nothing to offer me, and he didn’t want my pity,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Something like that. I thought he was being stupid; it was obvious that he was eating his heart out for you. I couldn’t understand his reasoning.’

  Her lashes flew up. ‘And when we met, and you heard my name, you knew who I was!’ The accusation scraped rawly on her throat. She seemed to be fighting back both tears and laughter.

  ‘Yes . . . Said cold, it sounds horrible, and I’m ashamed. At the beginning I didn’t see you for yourself. You had something I found attractive, and that was Matt’s interest. He’s always scored in life. It would have been something to put one over on him. To get my hands on something he wanted appealed to me very much.’

  ‘How did you know that Matt still wanted me after all that time?’

  ‘When he got the business on its feet again he set someone on trying to find you. But you’d moved and changed jobs and couldn’t be traced. I couldn’t believe my luck when I met you—not strictly by chance, incidentally. I fixed the first meeting. I overheard your name in conversation. It had to be you. I knew the personal details about you from the inquiries Matt had been making your age, coloring. There couldn’t be two redheads in that age group with such an unusual name. And so I made a fast play for you. I wanted to keep you secret from Matt until after the nuptial knot was firmly tied—that would really have rubbed his nose in it—but it didn’t come off. He made one of his famous unscheduled visits before the wedding, and your identity couldn’t be withheld any longer. You’ve got to hand it to Matt, though, he was a cunning old dog, setting me up like that.’

  ‘You mean by taking you out and getting you drunk?’<
br />
  ‘That wasn’t all he did. The party he arranged for me wasn’t the traditional stag thing. Camille was among the people he invited. He laid it on the mat for me. I’ve always fancied Camille, I won’t deny that, but she’s never looked at me before. It’s always been Matt. She was all over him that night, but he wasn’t playing, so she turned to someone who would play—me! It started off for laughs. I took her home and we started messing around, just kissing. We’d both had too much to drink. Before I realized what was happening, we were in bed together. Camille had dug out a bottle of Scotch and we’d started drinking again, and so it’s all pretty hazy in my mind. But I know we made love. I woke up with an awful hangover, which was how I came to fall down the steps and break my stupid leg on leaving Camille’s apartment.’

  ‘That was a lucky break for both of us. It would have been a disaster if our wedding had taken place as planned.’ It didn’t bear thinking of. ‘What you said just now about beginning to fall in love with me . . . well, that wasn’t true. You were just considering my feelings. You can’t feel that way about me because you’re in love with Camille. I can’t believe my own stupidity. I’ve seen the way you look at her. Why it didn’t occur to me, I don’t know. I guess I’ve been too wrapped up in my own affairs. I’m pleased for you, Tony. It’s not the best way to start a marriage, so it’s up to you to make it a good one. I hope that you and Camille will be very happy.’