Dreaming of Manderley

by Leah Marie Brown

  “Behold! Her Majesty Coco has arisen,” I say, setting her back on her feet. “Let the royal levée begin.”

  She shakes, stretches, and raises her nose in the air as if to say we are not amused.

  In truth, had I known the château was located so far from the village I wouldn’t have brought her. Before leaving, Xavier showed me the cabinet in the stables containing the keys to the cars, each labeled in his strong, sure script, and told me to use whichever I preferred.

  “Can you drive a manual?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bon,” he said, smiling. “The Aston Martin is easy to maneuver on these narrow roads, and a sexy ride, but the Range Rover is more comfortable for longer drives. I would advise against taking the McLaren.”

  I am sure the Aston Martin would have been a sexy ride and cut my journey to a fraction of the time, but the less time I spend at the château means less effort to avoid Madame Deniau, or, as Olivia has taken to calling her, Madame Vous.

  The village is postcard perfect, just as Xavier described it. The whitewashed shops lining the wharf and forming the main thoroughfare. The chapel with the Celtic cross in the yard, covered in lichen.

  Two elderly women huddled together outside the charcuterie are eyeing me suspiciously. I smile as I pass. Their gazes shift from me to Coco and back to me again.

  “Scandaleux,” one of them hisses.

  Thanks to Olivia, scandaleux is one of the few French words I know, so I assume they are mistaking me for someone else and keep walking.

  “Excusez-moi,” I say, stopping the next person I pass, a man in a striped shirt and beret. “Où puis-je acheter le café, s’il vous plaît?”

  He stares at me blankly, making me wonder if I have inverted another pronoun and butchered my simple request for coffee, until Coco yaps and hops on his leg.

  “Oh, la!” he says, bending over and scratching Coco’s head. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Coco.”

  He stands and jerks his thumb at a glass-fronted shop with an old metal sign hanging above the door.

  “Merci,” I say.

  He nods brusquely and walks away.

  The shop appears to cater to tourists, selling handmade baskets filled with picnic items, tins of sardines, jars of olives, wheels of cheese, and bottles of the locally produced chouchen, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey and served as an aperitif.

  I take two bags of coffee off a shelf and walk to the cash register, queuing up behind two women who look to be about my age. They don’t notice me until they have finished paying and turn to leave. One looks down at Coco and frowns.

  “Êtes-vous Madame de Maloret?” she asks sharply.

  “Oui.”

  The women exchange glances.

  “Tu te moques de moi,” the other one says, staring at my chest. “Elle est plate comme une limande.”

  She is flat as a dab.

  “Chloé!” the cashier gasps.

  The one named Chloé rolls her eyes at the cashier and they both start talking at once, a rapid fire exchange of words I can’t comprehend. The women give me dirty looks and leave the store.

  “Don’t mind them,” the cashier says in a British accent. “Chloé and Vivienne are a pair of daft cows.”

  “You speak English?”

  “Whenever I can.”

  “Thank God,” I say, dropping the bags of coffee on the counter. “I am Manderley Maxwell. I mean, Manderley de Maloret.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  She laughs. “I don’t know where you are from, but this is Saint-Maturinus, luv. This fishing village might have Wi-Fi and a Carrefour Express, but the residents are stuck in the Middle Ages. When their liege lord returns from the South of France with a new wife, it creates a stir at the well.”

  Heat flushes my cheeks. It never occurred to me what people might think about the hastiness of our wedding. I don’t like knowing people are viewing the most important event in my life through jaded lenses.

  “My name is Caroline Gaveau, but my friends call me Caro,” she says, running the bags of coffee over a bar scanner. “I own this shop along with my husband, Yves.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Caro. What brought you to Saint-Maturinus-sur-Mer, if you don’t mind me asking? It seems far from the beaten path.”

  “A man,” she says, laughing. “What else would motivate a woman to leave her home in favor of life in a medieval fishing village?”

  “A medieval fishing village with Wi-Fi,” I say, ironically.

  “And a Carrefour Express!”

  We laugh.

  I pay for the coffee and Caro gives me back a handful of coins. She reaches under the counter and pulls out a reusable sack, sticks the bags of coffee inside, and hands it to me.

  “I didn’t pay for the sack.”

  “It’s a gift. They’re made locally using seagrass and recycled paper. You might want to remember to bring it when you come to the village because none of the shops give those plastic bags you Americans are so fond of.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, luv. Stop in if you get lonely.”

  “I will.”

  The bells on the door tinkle and a man with a camera strung around his neck walks into the store. I turn to leave and then stop.

  “Caro, what did Chloé say about me?”

  She inhales and the air whistles between her teeth. “You don’t want to know, luv.”

  “I do.”

  “She said elle est plate comme une limande. It’s a French saying, which, roughly translated, means she’s as flat as a flounder.”

  A tingling heat sweeps up the back of my neck and over my cheeks. I thank Caro for telling me and hurry out the door, scooping Coco into my arms, and not stopping until I have a stitch in my side.

  Back in our apartments, I unhook Coco from her leash and lean against the door until the pain in my side goes away.

  I am putting Coco’s leash back when I notice a photograph on the floor near the chest, which wasn’t there when I took the leash out of the drawer. I pick it up and gasp when I see it is a photograph of Marine. She is sitting cross-legged on a bed, a sheet covering her private areas, her black hair hanging over her bare shoulders, a seductive expression on her face as she stares into the camera.

  An ache begins to build deep in my chest.

  That’s when I see the little white dog curled up on the pillow on the bed behind Marine. Coco! I look down at the sweet dog spinning circles at my feet and the pain shoots to my heart with the speed and devastation of a bullet.

  I hear Xavier’s voice in my head. I did not name Coco. She was . . . abandoned by her previous owner.

  It barely registered at the time, but now I think about the way Xavier hesitated before saying Coco was abandoned, as if he weren’t being truthful.

  I look at the photograph again and my vision blurs with unshed tears. It never occurred to me Marine might be Coco’s owner. Xavier had described Coco’s previous owner as heartless, and, indeed, it would take cold person to abandon a helpless little dog, but . . .

  . . . but something doesn’t feel right. There are hundreds of puzzle pieces to this picture and I feel as if I am missing most of them. I have been trying to fit the wrong pieces together, hoping for a clear picture.

  The woman in the photograph doesn’t look cold. Her eyes are sparkling. Her cheeks are flushed. Her swollen lips are parted in a smile. Her seductive gaze suggests a deep desire for the person taking the picture.

  I feel sick.

  I take the photograph into the living room and toss it into the fireplace. With trembling fingers, I light a long match and toss it onto the picture. The corner curls black and I feel a stab of guilt. I pull it out of the fireplace and blow on the corner, crying out at the futility of the situation. If Xavier is still in love with Marine, burning a picture will not change his feelings. It just marks me as a jealous, insecure girl.

  Marine has been the ghost between us,
and I don’t think she will be exorcised anytime soon.

  I toss the picture into the liquor cabinet, beside the bottle of scotch, and close the doors as if I am locking the ghost in the closet.

  I go into the bedroom to get my iPhone.

  Olivia answers on the second ring. “You can’t be missing Xavier already,” she says, laughing. “Girl, you got it bad.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Manderley? What’s wrong?”

  “I am having a bad day.”

  “Tell me about it. Life is tough when your château is too big and your prince is a handsome millionaire. Don’t let the tiara weigh you down, darling, it’s just one of the burdens of the blessed.”

  The tears I have been holding back spill down my cheeks and I draw a jagged breath. The words spill out of my mouth as fast as the tears spilling down my cheeks. I tell Olivia about the women in the village—all of them. I tell her about Coco and the photograph. I confess my doubts.

  “What do you think?”

  “It is rather strange,” she concedes. “Usually couples fight over custody of their pets. I’ve never known a woman to walk out on her man and her dog. Maybe . . .”

  Olivia let’s her words trail off, but I know the direction they were headed.

  Maybe Marine didn’t walk out on her man and her dog. Maybe she didn’t walk out at all.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Text from Xavier de Maloret:

  My heart stopped beating the moment I left you sleeping in our bed and won’t start beating again until I have you in my arms. Tu me manques. X

  My nights are a quick succession of fractured dreams. I wake disoriented, and sometimes I think I can feel Xavier sleeping beside me, smell his breath on my neck, scented with scotch. Then, the light of dawn fights its way through the gap between the curtains and chases away the lingering magic.

  My days are longer. I try to stay busy, working on my novel and taking the dogs for long walks, but I find the idle life frustrating and lonely. I miss working.

  It is during these lonely times I call Olivia and we laugh about Hollywood gossip or plot our screenplay about the jazz musician living in ’20s Cannes or I walk to the village and chat with Caro.

  One rainy afternoon a week after Xavier’s departure, I decide to explore the château further. I am wandering through a series of unfinished rooms near our private apartments, rooms with peeling plaster and floors in need of repair, when I find more pieces to the puzzle in the shape of boxes. Limp cardboard boxes filled with Marine’s belongings—things a woman wouldn’t dream of leaving behind. One box contains love letters tied with a Cartier ribbon and leather-bound journals, the pages filled with Marine’s elegant, loopy script. School papers, a rag doll, and the trinkets of childhood fill another box. Five wardrobe boxes are stuffed with clothes—one filled entirely with Versace gowns. The last box contains a leather photo album resting on a crumpled-up Marchesa wedding gown. The album is like a portal to the past, giving me a glimpse of Xavier’s life with the first Madame de Maloret—or at least a glimpse of the day he began his life with the first Madame de Maloret.

  It looked like a romantic beginning. Xavier gazes lovingly at Marine in nearly every photo, his body positioned toward her, his eyes sparkling with a light generated by love—deep, devoted, forsake-all-others love. In a sad, masochistic act, I flip through each page until I reach the last.

  I place the album on its taffeta bed and return to the apartments to find a stack of monogrammed stationery waiting on the hall chest. Heavy ivory paper and cards with gold interlocking M’s embossed upon them. I trace the M’s with my finger.

  Manderley de Maloret. Marine de Maloret.

  A cold sensation trickles down my spine—the sort of sensation my aunt used to say was caused by the touch of an unseen spirit. I hear my aunt’s voice in my head. A ghost has passed you by, my girl.

  I pull out my phone and compose a text to Xavier, asking him if he ordered me stationery.

  His answer comes as I am climbing into bed.

  Text from Xavier de Maloret:

  No. It was probably Madame Deniau.

  My eyes are fluttering shut when I realize this is the first night Xavier hasn’t called me to say goodnight.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “It was probably Madame Deniau,” Olivia snorts. “Of course it was Madame Vous. Creepy old wraith.”

  My iPhone rang before my eyes were even open.

  I look at the clock.

  “It’s only ten in Los Angeles. Shouldn’t you be at some fabulous party flirting with tomorrow’s next A-lister?”

  “I am not in Los Angeles.”

  “You’re not?”

  She hesitates. “I meant to say I am in Malibu. Nathan let me use his beach house for the weekend.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  Olivia makes a rude noise with her mouth. “His commission for the sale of A Quaint Milieu probably paid half of his mortgage. Letting me use it for a weekend is the least he could do.” A loud noise, like the roar of a jet engine, can be head in the background. “Ooh, the tide is coming in. Gotta go. Love.”

  The line goes dead.

  She calls back as I am about to eat a late lunch, her name and picture popping up on my screen.

  “Bonjour, Olivia,” I say, holding the phone to my ear. “What’s the matter? Can’t sleep?”

  “I will sleep just fine once you open your golden gates, Rapunzel, and let me sleep in one of your tower rooms.”

  “What?”

  “I am at your front gates. You have sounded so depressed this last week I wanted to surprise you with a visit. So, surprise!”

  I laugh.

  I tell her how to open the gates and where to park, then hurry to meet her near the stables. She pulls up in a rented Peugeot, hops out, and we are hugging as if we haven’t seen each other in years.

  “Are you happy to see me?”

  “Yes.” I say, hugging her again. “You can’t begin to know how happy I am to see you.”

  “Just a minute,” she says, hurrying back to the car. “I come bearing gifts.”

  She opens the passenger door and returns with a bottle of champagne and a pair of socks.

  “Here,” she says, handing the gifts to me. “The champagne is for me and the socks are for Monsieur X. I figure you have probably pilfered most of his by now.”

  “Funny.”

  “I thought so.”

  She pulls her suitcase out of the trunk and we enter the château via an entrance to the private apartments, a narrow wooden stairway.

  “Where are all of your burly footmen to lug my traveling trunks?”

  “As luck would have it, Xavier’s staff are gone for their annual summer holidays. It’s just Madame Deniau, a gardener, and a part-time housekeeper who comes in from the village.”

  We spend the rest of the evening watching Beaches and drinking one of the bottles of wine we find in the liquor cabinet. When we have drained the last drop from the bottle and the credits are rolling up the screen, I show Olivia the boxes in the unfinished room. Marine’s boxes.

  “What do you think?” I say, pulling the Marchesa wedding gown out of its box and holding it up for her to see.

  “What do I think?” she cries. “What do I think? I’ll tell you what I think. Your Monsieur X murdered the first Madame de Maloret and buried her bones somewhere in this château.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am serious,” she says, snatching the dress from my hands and flinging it back in the box as if it is cursed. “It all adds up: his reluctance to talk about Marine, the abandoned pooch, the boxes, the angry villagers.”

  “You have spent too much time in La-La Land. People don’t get away with murder in the real world.”

  “They do if they have a creepy, soul-sucking housekeeper to help them hide the body.”

  “So now you think Madame Vous . . . Madame Deniau is a murderer, too?”

  “Madame?”

&n
bsp; Olivia screams and I startle at the sound of Madame Deniau’s papery voice behind us. My cheeks flush with heat as I turn to face her.

  “Oui.”

  She gestures to the hallway and says something in French, but I can’t understand her.

  “She said you received a package and that she left it on the chest in the foyer of your apartment.”

  In my embarrassment I forgot Olivia speaks fluent French.

  “Merci, Madame Deniau.”

  The woman nods her gray head and disappears as silently as she appeared. I look at Olivia.

  “I didn’t even hear her.”

  “Of course you didn’t hear her. Stealth is a prerequisite to be a truly efficient murderer.”

  We return to the apartment.

  The package, it turns out, is a jasmine bush in what looks to be an antique Sèvres pot, a wedding gift from Thierry Lambert. The message written on the attached card reads, When you toured my fields you wisely said, “Scents can transport you to another time and place and evoke emotions hidden somewhere deep down.” I hope this plant—grafted from a jasmine bush once used to make scents for Marie Antoinette—transports you to that day, when you were in the first blush of love for Xavier.

  I read the card to Xavier when he calls that night, but he sounds drawn and distracted. I try not to read too much into his tepid response, though it is beginning to feel as if we are separated by more than miles.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “It has to be the McLaren,” Olivia says, crossing her arms over her chest.

  During breakfast this morning, Olivia asked if we could drive to the village so she could pick up some gifts from Caro’s shop. Naturally, I agreed. I assumed we would take her rental, but she insisted I drive. The moment she saw the McLaren parked in the stall beside the Range Rover, she insisted we drive it into town.

  “Olivia, I can’t,” I say, moving back toward the Ranger Rover. “Xavier advised against driving this car.”