To Hear a Nightingale

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To Hear a Nightingale Page 53

by Charlotte Bingham


  ‘I’d a nice touch,’ Willie told Cassie as they stood overlooking the scenes below them in Longchamps’ spectacular tree-lined paddock. ‘How about yourself?’

  ‘Let’s just say Sheila and I have more or less paid for our vacation,’ Cassie replied happily.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about Reverse,’ Willie said. ‘He’d the makings of a very useful colt. But tell me, one of my lads said old Celebration had also broken down?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true, Willie,’ Cassie answered. ‘After his last win at Phoenix Park, Niall discovered he’d a hairline fracture of the nearside cannon bone. So I’m retiring him to stud. He’ll be standing next year, down the road, at Major Parker’s. I’m not selling him, of course. We’re coming to an arrangement.’

  ‘Very sensible, because you’ll do well by him,’ Willie told her. ‘He’s a grand stamp of horse.’

  Somebody touched her arm to attract her attention, and Cassie turned to find herself face to face with a tall, balding and bespectacled Frenchman.

  ‘You will not perhaps remember me,’ he began.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Cassie interrupted, her cast-iron memory for faces as usual not failing her. ‘We met at Leonora’s. It must be three years ago.’

  ‘Nearly exactly three years ago,’ the Frenchman replied, half-bowing. ‘Jean-Luc de Vendrer, in case your memory for names is not as extraordinary as your memory for faces.’

  ‘You make champagne,’ Cassie recalled.

  ‘And you refuse to talk about your children.’

  De Vendrer smiled at Cassie’s amazement, and raised his glass.

  ‘To our reacquaintance.’

  ‘Right.’

  They drank, and when she looked up from her glass, Cassie found the Frenchman looking her right in the eyes. He asked her if she was in Paris long, and she told him about her week’s vacation. He was studiously delighted with her enthusiasm for the French capital, and enquired if she had spared any time for the French countryside.

  ‘Not on this trip, alas,’ Cassie told him. ‘We’re returning to Ireland on Tuesday.’

  ‘Could I perhaps tempt you to dine with me tonight?’

  ‘Tonight I’m afraid is all booked.’

  ‘But of course. In light of this sensational Irish victory. Lunch tomorrow then?’

  ‘I’m meant to be shopping with my friend Sheila.’

  ‘Shoppers need to eat.’

  ‘OK,’ Cassie found herself agreeing. ‘Lunch tomorrow would be lovely.’

  De Vendrer carefully wrote down the address where she was to meet him, then excusing himself left the party, which, as he explained with good humour, was becoming a little too boisterous for someone who had backed the losing horse. He wished Cassie well until tomorrow.

  When he had left, Cassie looked at the address he had given her. It simply said ‘Lasserre’.

  The one word was quite sufficient for the cab driver, who drove Cassie to the famous restaurant on the Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt at breakneck speed. Cassie had conceded to Sheila’s pleas to treat herself to at least one Paris original, and had bought herself a beautifully tailored Chanel suit, in white wool, bound with a navy blue edging. She had also bought herself a Paris hat.

  De Vendrer was waiting for her outside, standing by the door studiously reading a folded-over copy of Le Figaro. He discarded the paper, kissed Cassie’s hand and complimented her on her looks as he held the restaurant door open for her.

  ‘But how clever to have had something made for you while you were here,’ he said, after Monsieur Rene Lasserre had greeted them personally and shown them to their corner table.

  ‘That’s very gallant, Monsieur de Vendrer,’ Cassie replied, ‘but I bought this costume off the rack.’

  De Vendrer pretended not to understand. Then when Cassie explained that the suit was not tailormade, he shrugged and said that this was not possible.

  ‘If it is,’ he added, ‘then you must have the perfect figure. And as for the hat . . .’ He kissed the tips of his closed thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes. ‘Perfection.’

  ‘You have probably never eaten food anywhere near as good as this, yes?’ de Vendrer enquired.

  ‘I have never eaten food one tenth anywhere near as good as this, Monsieur de Vendrer,’ Cassie replied. ‘I really didn’t know there was food this good this side of Paradise.’

  ‘René will appreciate that. You must tell him. And please. If we are to be friends, you must call me Jean-Luc.’

  ‘And you must call me Cassie.’

  ‘Ah bon. Then we are to be friends.’

  De Vendrer raised his glass and drank to her. Cassie looked down at her food.

  Afterwards they strolled by the Seine, while Jean-Luc entertained Cassie with stories concerning the various bridges which spanned the river. He took her round Notre Dame, which Cassie had only seen from the outside with Sheila, and then all the way up the famous steps which led to the Sacre Coeur.

  ‘This is rather like the Taj Mahal,’ he explained. ‘It should really be seen first time by full moonlight. But since you are here for so little time, alas you must see it by day.’

  ‘It’s still awfully beautiful,’ Cassie said. ‘Even by an October sun.’

  ‘Like yourself,’ Jean-Luc said, before taking her arm and leading her to a small café overlooking the square, where they had coffee and cognac.

  ‘Is there a very urgent reason for your immediate return?’ he politely enquired. ‘I do have a reason for asking, I assure you.’

  ‘I have to get back to my children. And horses, I’m afraid,’ Cassie answered. ‘The season’s not quite over yet.’

  ‘Ah. And when do your horses run again?’

  Cassie drank some coffee and felt herself blushing.

  ‘They don’t,’ she admitted. ‘Maybe one goes at the end of the month, but what with one thing and another, and with which I won’t bore you, we’re already roughing them off.’

  She looked back up at him.

  ‘That means getting them ready for the winter.’

  ‘I understand. So why not stay an extra week. At my expense. And get yourself ready for the winter?’

  The invitation seemed too good to refuse. Sheila Meath was most certainly in favour.

  ‘A week at his château, my dear?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why if I were you, I should leap at the chance. Already you’re looking quite a different girl to the pale little thing you were when you arrived. An extra week of luxury in a château in the Loire valley will do you nothing but good.’

  Cassie was finally persuaded when Sheila volunteered to move into Claremore and keep an eye on things until she returned. Cassie thereupon called Jean-Luc and accepted his very kind invitation. He expressed his delight, and told her that he would collect her the following morning and together they would drive down to his country home.

  Her first view of the château took her breath away. Cassie had thought the drive up to Claremore was pretty impressive, but it was nothing compared to the poplar-lined road which seemed to run for miles after Jean-Luc’s Bentley had passed by the gate lodge and through the stone-pillared gates. Cassie had also thought that Claremore was some house, until she saw Jean-Luc’s ancestral home.

  ‘This has to be the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen,’ Cassie gasped as the Bentley made the final sweep up the drive, revealing through the windscreen the enormous château.

  ‘It is certainly considered one of the most beautiful houses in France,’ Jean-Luc replied gravely.

  ‘Is that right?’ Cassie asked, leaning forward to gain a better view. ‘It’s such a wonderful colour. I’ve really never seen anything like it. How would you call that colour?’

  ‘I would call that colour,’ Jean-Luc replied, ‘the colour of history.’

  Cassie smiled and turned to see if Jean-Luc too was smiling. But he wasn’t. Instead he was polishing his glasses carefully on a perfectly spotless linen handkerchief.

  As she walked in through the great door
and into the tapestry-hung hall, Cassie was suddenly and surprisingly glad she knew Leonora. If she hadn’t known her, she would never before have stayed in a place of comparable size, with an army of servants, enormous corridors, and the sort and size of furniture which could neither fit nor ever look at ease in an ordinary-size house. If she had never stayed on Long Island, or spent so much time at Derry Na Loch, she might well have been intimidated by the opulence of her new surroundings, and a staff ready to cater to her every wish.

  Jean-Luc introduced Cassie to his housekeeper, and then excused himself, having first said how much he was looking forward to seeing Cassie for drinks in the salon before dinner. He made his farewell as if he was leaving on a short journey, and the manner of his departure was the same; as if they were both going to go their quite separate ways until later that evening, when they would rendezvous, perhaps to discuss the adventures which had befallen them in the interim.

  The housekeeper appointed Cassie a personal maid, a young bashful girl called Celine, who spoke a little English, and who led her up flights of stairs to her own suite of rooms, followed by a young boy who struggled with Cassie’s unmatching luggage.

  ‘Alors, m’moiselle,’ the maid said as the boy carefully deposited Cassie’s luggage on the floor by the end of her bed, ‘you want Celine unpick you?’

  ‘I like to do my own unpacking, Celine,’ Cassie smiled. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘Monsieur de Vendrer, he say please be ready for seven.’

  Celine flashed a beguiling smile at Cassie, then pushed the young boy out ahead of her through the door, leaving Cassie to wander through the suite of rooms, which consisted of a drawing room with a log fire burning in the grate, a bedroom with a superb antique four-poster, also with its very own log fire, a maid’s room and two bathrooms. Cassie smiled to herself and wished Erin was with her. She’d have gone round exclaiming at everything, and telling Cassie to look at this and to look at that. She would have gasped audibly at the tapestries, the fine furniture, the paintings and the brocades, and then she would have clucked her tongue and expressed her firmly held opinion that it was very wrong for one person to have all this.

  Cassie laughed at the thought then sat down on one of the two ornate antique sofas. They were both painted in the palest of greys, upholstered in faint pink and cushioned with feathers. As she sat, Cassie felt what exhaustion there still was left in her system beginning finally to fade away as she realised that there was no getting up at the crack of dawn to go and ride work, and that she could sleep in as long and as deeply as she wished. She leaned back, kissed the palms of both her hands and blew the kiss to the enormous drawing room.

  After she had luxuriated in the huge bath, she changed into a long black velvet skirt and a sequinned top. She studied herself anxiously in the ancient looking-glass, and hoped Jean-Luc would not be disappointed. Then she frowned at herself and wondered why she should be so concerned. After all, they had only just met. Or rather, re-met.

  He was waiting for her in the salon, an enormous, but beautifully proportioned room, filled with wondrous furniture and paintings. He was dressed formally in black tie, and a pair of evening slippers, the fronts of which were hand-embroidered with swans, their necks intertwining – the same motif Cassie had seen embroidered into the corner of one of the tapestries in her bedroom.

  ‘I hope you do not mind,’ he said in greeting, ‘but we shall be dining alone.’

  Cassie said that was fine, thinking that it would give them a better chance to get to know each other, while her eyes roamed the room, looking at the treasures which filled it. Jean-Luc pretended to ignore the apparent inspection, and asked for her comments on the champagne they were drinking.

  ‘It’s the best I’ve ever tasted,’ Cassie said simply.

  ‘Good,’ Jean-Luc nodded in return. ‘You are an excellent judge. This is my very best vintage. I shall send you back to Ireland with a case or two.’

  Cassiesmiled in gratitude but didn’t protest. Tyronehad always expressed the opinion that if someone made you a good offer, take it.

  Jean-Luc indicated a chair for Cassie, then sat down opposite her. On the table where she placed her glass, she noticed some photographs. Three of two young girls, charming, smiling and pretty as pictures, and two of a very beautiful woman. She looked from the photographs to Jean-Luc, who was once more carefully cleaning his spectacles. She felt herself colouring, and just hoped the blood wasn’t going to rush to her face. For some inexplicable reason she had simply assumed Jean-Luc not to be married.

  ‘Are these pretty girls your daughters?’ she asked him, seeing him look up at her.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘And this?’ Cassie half asked, turning the picture of the beautiful woman to her.

  ‘My wife.’

  Cassie stared at the picture and knew that she had turned bright red. She prayed that since Jean-Luc was seated from her at such a distance, and that the light was low in the room, he couldn’t see the colour of her embarrassment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cassie suddenly blurted out.

  ‘Why?’ Jean-Luc enquired politely.

  ‘Because I really didn’t know you were married,’ Cassie replied quite truthfully.

  ‘I’m not,’ Jean-Luc answered, ‘and neither, alas, are you.’

  Turning the photograph away from her once more, Cassie looked round at Jean-Luc and saw him studying her earnestly through his round spectacles.

  ‘You’re not married?’ Cassie enquired hesitantly.

  ‘No,’ Jean-Luc said with more than a touch of melancholy. ‘Not any more. Alas we are both of us quite alone.’

  Then he looked down at his hands, and studied the thumb of his right hand as it slowly rubbed the palm of his left. Tragedy seemed to hang in the air, Cassie thought. She must consider carefully what she said.

  ‘I’m really sorry. I simply didn’t know,’ she began.

  ‘How could you?’ Jean-Luc answered, still not looking up. ‘There was no reason you should.’

  ‘Did you know about my husband?’

  ‘Of course. I read it in the newspapers.’

  Still his thumb caressed the palm of his other hand.

  ‘I can’t think why I didn’t ask you in Paris whether or not you were married.’

  ‘Perhaps because I didn’t want you to. You seemed to be so happy. You were enjoying your day. The very last thing I wish is for me to spoil it by mentioning our sadnesses. Perhaps too, for you, as it is for me, the memory it is still most painful. I was always advised in these matters, by my mother, never to enquire. People will talk about their sadness, she said, only when they are ready to do so.’

  ‘Are you ready to do so, Jean-Luc?’

  ‘I think so, yes. And you?’

  ‘I think maybe I am, too.’

  ‘Good. Then let us talk over dinner.’

  They dined in the smaller of the two dining rooms. On their way to table Cassie saw the more formal of the two rooms where it was obviously possible to sit forty or fifty people at the main table. She was therefore very glad her host had chosen the more intimate room for just the two of them. They dined by candlelight, and the food was exquisite.

  Throughout the meal they talked of their individual sorrows. Jean-Luc knew much more of Cassie’s than she of his, because they had friends in common, and because Tyrone’s tragic accident had received international news coverage. Cassie found herself able to talk quite freely of her feelings, and as she did so, part of the burden seemed to be lifting from her shoulders. Jean-Luc listened intently, making only the chance and always pertinent comment.

  ‘Grief instructs the wise, remember,’ he said at one point. ‘Sorrow is knowledge.’

  ‘I think that’s probably true,’ Cassie agreed. ‘I know my friend Sheila Meath would go along with that. She keeps telling me that people who conceal their grief never find a remedy.’

  ‘Your friend is right.’

  ‘What about your wife?’ Cassie asked.
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  ‘I lost my wife almost three years ago,’ Jean-Luc replied, once more removing his glasses to clean them systematically. Cassie noted how big and sad his eyes were without them. ‘We had been married for ten years, and when she was gone, I really thought that I too would die.’

  ‘I know,’ Cassie said, ‘I know exactly.’

  ‘But life is here to be lived,’ Jean-Luc continued. ‘To weep excessively for the dead is to insult the living.’

  Jean-Luc carefully replaced his spectacles and stared at Cassie through the candlelight.

  ‘“Sadness flies on the wings of morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light,”’ he said.

  ‘That has to be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard,’ Cassie sighed, shaking her head slowly. ‘Really.’

  ‘It is beautiful, Cassie, because it is true. We must be aware of our sorrows, but we must not bury them away. Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living.’

  Cassie looked back at him through the flickering candlelight. He was so intellectual, and so sensitive-looking, with his high forehead, those enormous liquid dark eyes, and his delicate, sensitive hands.

  ‘Do you play the piano?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I do. Why?’

  ‘I thought you might,’ Cassie smiled in return.

  He played to her after dinner in the music room: Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 in E flat major, Opus 9, and Liszt’s Consolation No. 3. He played as well as any amateur pianist Cassie had ever heard, with an exquisite touch and a pleasant lack of unnecessary rubato.

  Then as they sat by the fire drinking their coffee and Armagnac, Jean-Luc asked Cassie what she would like to do during the short time she was staying.

  ‘If I may presume,’ he said, ‘perhaps it would be a good idea if I did not burden you with social entertainments. I think perhaps – or I guess, as you would say – that maybe a long and quiet rest would do you much good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cassie answered gratefully. ‘You know, after dealing with people all year, day in day out, I wouldn’t care if I didn’t see another living soul all week.’

 

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