Whispering in French

by Sophia Nash

  Magdali moved toward the door.

  “No,” I said without thought. “Don’t you dare leave, Magdali.”

  She stopped and parked herself near the door with her head bowed.

  I felt as if I were in some sort of strange tale about Cheshire cats and going through a looking glass. Just couldn’t figure out what my uncle was saying. Something was lost in translation.

  “It’s such a pity your father couldn’t seem to produce males to carry on his line,” Jean-Michel continued. “But he liked to spread his seed, so perhaps there are sons we know nothing about. Yes, I vaguely recall—”

  The cane descended with such force that the sound echoed for long moments in the room. “I said, tais-toi, Jean-Michel,” Jean demanded.

  Finally, blessed silence.

  “What the hell is he talking about?” My voice was hoarse.

  “Kate, Magdali. Leave us,” Grandfather demanded.

  “No,” I said. “I will not. Magdali, I said don’t leave.”

  Magdali took her hand off of the brass door lever.

  “What does my father have to do with Magdali?”

  Both men began speaking at once. The son’s sharp tones cut through his father’s. “Why are you protecting her from the truth? She has the right to know. Magdali does.”

  A dozen insane ideas battled in my brain. “Granddaddy. Tell me. Please.”

  Jean looked first at me, then toward Magdali, and finally his gaze rested on his son. “I’ve overlooked your deficiencies in character for too long. I’d hoped you would change. But you haven’t. I want you out of Madeleine Marie by tonight.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “He doesn’t go until he tells me what he’s insinuating.”

  Again, Jean tried to speak but Jean-Michel won out. “Magdali is your half sister, you little fool.”

  “Pack your affairs and go,” Grandfather said, quiet fury building. “And don’t return. I don’t want you at my funeral or anywhere near my grave. Get out. You might be one of my legal heirs, but you are not my son. And I shall redo my will to leave the full twenty-five percent the law allows me at my discretion in Kate’s name.”

  Jean-Michel disregarded his father and instead focused on me, his eyes small and bright with hate. “When your father, the ugly American, arrived in Biarritz, he stayed at the Hôtel du Palais. Had his way with Magdali’s mother, who was a maid there at the time. He then met Antoinette, and managed to impregnate both of them within the same month. And you take after him. Your character is proof. You’ve tainted my father’s mind, which everyone knows is questionable due to your psychological influence.”

  “You’re lying about my father,” I said. “Jean. Tell me he’s lying. Magdali?” I looked at her standing by the door ten feet away and the parquet floor seemed to contract half the distance. “Magdali?” I repeated.

  She shook her head.

  “My father did not—”

  “Oh, but he did,” Jean-Michel said with a cool smile. “Repeatedly.”

  My grandfather’s hoarse voice rose and the two men began shouting at each other in French, while my thoughts darted in every direction.

  It felt like we were all players in an off-off-Broadway tragi-comedy. As if on cue, Lily appeared at the doorway. She was holding Solange’s hand. My gaze fell to the doll dangling from Solange’s other hand. Tiny Tears. My . . . I strode over to the girls and dropped to my knees to look at my old doll. My first and only doll. The one who had listened to all my fears for so many years and then had been put in a chest to hold all my secrets.

  But the ancient doll had strange striped overalls, not the white lace gown she’d had when I’d seen her in the chest in Lily’s bedroom. “Who gave you that doll, Solange?”

  Solange, eight, looked at her mother. “Maman.”

  I rose up on my feet and looked at Magdali. “Where did that doll come from?”

  “Leave it, Kate,” she said slowly.

  “That is not my doll. The one my father gave me has a crack at the hairline.”

  And once again, as usual, reality was tipping past the point of understanding. There was no ground beneath my feet, nothing genuine or real to stand on.

  North was south and east was west. Beyond the windows the leaves of the plane trees threshed the turbulent hot July air as the winds collided from every direction. The church bells rang, and the monstrous orange tabby cat streaked across the pea gravel drive. Air flowed from an open window and it smelled of rain and earth. People were speaking, loudly then softly, none to me. It was hard to care. The only thing that made sense was what I could see, and smell, not hear.

  And all of a sudden I realized I was standing all alone by the window, looking out. I must have walked there. I felt so calm, all alone. It was my favorite way to be. By myself. The only time I could relax.

  I wasn’t meant to be with other people. I’ve always known that. I told you that at the beginning of the story, remember? I’ve never had that resilience my profession insisted was the key to life. I just know how to plod on without emotion.

  “Kate, are you listening to me?” Jean’s words finally registered.

  I turned to face him. All the others had departed. “Is it true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why . . . why didn’t anyone tell me? Or did everyone just forget? Or were too embarrassed?”

  “I don’t know. It was just understood. There was never a reason to discuss it. It was obvious we should keep it a secret.”

  “Obvious? So I would have gone to my grave not knowing I have a sister? A sister I didn’t see for years and years. And she knows.”

  “Your father decided you were too close to one another. And none of us thought it wise for anyone outside the family to guess the truth. But it’s why I took in Nadine before Magdali was born. The Hôtel du Palais showed Nadine the door when it became obvious she was pregnant, and she came to the villa in search of your father. By then, Antoinette was pregnant as well, and I’d given my consent as there was no other option. I would have never agreed if I had known about Nadine. It was your mother who insisted we employ Nadine. Magdali’s mother told her all the sordid details just before she died.”

  I could barely breathe. “Did he know Nadine was pregnant when he married my mother?”

  “Yes, I believe he did.”

  “Well, at least now I know why you hated him so much.”

  “Kate, I watched helplessly as he choreographed the most confounding life for you and Antoinette. Constantly moving, always restless, always new ideas, far too smart, and far too charming.”

  “No one is perfect,” I said dryly. “And by the way, to her credit, my mother loved our life, until it became too much even for her. And I didn’t mind the life we had. At least it was exciting.”

  “You’ve got it wrong, Kate,” Jean said. “You were the adult and they were the children. You raised yourself. But I can’t blame Antoinette. Her childhood was nonexistent.”

  A sudden peace washed over me. “We all do the best we can.”

  “But sometimes life requires more than that.”

  “Granddaddy—”

  The door to the salon opened, and Jean-Michel strode in. “I’m leaving. Here is the key to the house. I’ve packed my affairs and taken one last look around to say adieu to the house that was supposed to be my legacy.”

  “Half your legacy,” I said. “You keep forgetting about your sister.”

  He pretended I wasn’t in the room and finally a great ball of recklessness took root in my belly.

  He dangled the key right beyond the reach of my grandfather, who was leaning forward to take it. Slowly, he lowered his arm.

  I jerked the key out of my uncle’s hands.

  “And, Kate,” he said, “take care in how you spend my family’s money, for I shall have a lawyer review everything when all this is said and done and then monitor every last sou spent going forward. Because that’s French family law, in case you don’t know. You can’t disinherit your chi
ldren like the bestioles in America.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How drôle. Now I’m a beast from America, am I? Perfect. Well, from one beast to another, how much more money do you want to bilk from the family? How much money will it take to buy you out of your legacy—so you will be permanently out of all our lives?” I didn’t know what I was thinking. It was pure emotion.

  He scrunched his face, bemused, but barely hesitated. “One million.”

  I turned to look at Jean. His face was ashen and he said nothing as he stared at the turbulent, darkening sky out the window.

  “Come now, Jean-Michel,” I continued, “the Sotheby’s agent said the most that could be expected was one point five million euros. And if my grandfather can lawfully give my daughter or me”—I sent a glance to my grandfather—“twenty-five percent, then your share would be . . .” Math had never been my forte.

  “Five hundred sixty-two thousand five hundred,” my uncle said far too quickly.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jean finally whispered. “Jean-Michel, you will not hold anyone ransom by your—”

  “Half a million will do,” Jean-Michel interrupted, sensing an immediate windfall in the offing.

  A thousand voices told me to keep my mouth shut. “Done,” I said. “I will have a lawyer draw up documents for you to sign relinquishing any claim and you shall receive the money in return. Within the next six weeks.”

  He smirked. “You think you can sell it that fast.”

  “That is none of your business,” I said. “Now get out of our house.”

  “You have no right to tell me to leave my—”

  “I do. And I will. Get the hell out of here.”

  He looked at his father, who refused to turn his face to his son. Instead, Jean du Roque looked at me.

  Jean-Michel bent to kiss his father’s cheek only to have his father turn his head away. “Mon Dieu,” Jean-Michel muttered, shaking his head. He slowly crossed the floor to reach the door and left, slamming it behind him.

  I closed my eyes against the unbearable sadness. “Granddaddy?”

  “Yes, my darling.”

  “I don’t want you to worry. I will figure out a way to keep this damn mold-ridden villa even if I have to sell my soul. I don’t want you to move. And if I understood it, and it’s not some childish whim, which I don’t think it is, knowing Lily, then it appears we will both be living here with you, if you allow it.”

  His old hand, rich with history, reached toward mine, shaking. I met it halfway with my own. I finally dropped to the sofa beside his wheelchair.

  “There’s only one thing,” I said.

  “What’s that, dearest?”

  “Either this sofa goes, or I do.”

  A smile finally broke over his features. He scratched his head. “Never let it be said that a du Roque doesn’t have a sense of humor. You get that from me by the way. And you’re the only one who got it.”

  Tomorrow I would wonder what on earth I had just done. Today, I would simply luxuriate in—for the first time in forever— the feeling of doing instead of enduring.

  “Kate?”

  “Yes?”

  “Forget me. Forget Magdali—all of us.”

  “What—”

  “No,” he said softly. “Let me have my say. I just want to know one thing. Do you want to live in this house or are you doing this for me or Lily? Because I won’t have it. I will sell it myself if that’s the case. Our ancestors Madeleine and Marie wouldn’t have ever wanted anyone here who didn’t want to be.”

  “I know it’s hard to understand my change of heart, Grand-daddy, but you see, I think I never felt like I was part of the family. Not the du Roques nor the Hamiltons. Here I was the American, and in the US I was French. So, I didn’t feel the right to live here. But you know what? My daughter is right, and you are right. This is more a home than anywhere else could ever be. And I think I always have known it but didn’t want to hope because I’ve never really had a home. Seeing Lily here, and you, and Magdali—there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

  Peace, that old-dog-with-a-bone emotion, washed over me as I gazed into my grandfather’s old, wise eyes.

  And worry, that slippery-rope emotion, soon followed.

  How I was going to finance this grand scheme so quickly cobbled together and so poorly thought through was beyond me. But I would rather fail at this than succeed at anything else.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mr. Soames,” I said, sitting at his opulent dining table that following midday. “Your house is just lovely. The mix of Basque artifacts and modern everything else is stunning.”

  “Why, thank you,” Phillip replied. “But I know you did not come here to discuss this house. I am guessing you’ve come to pick my brain on how to raise money to pay off that uncle of yours.”

  “You know the one good thing about living in a village? It’s that it saves all kinds of time and embarrassment coming to the point,” I said dryly.

  “Please help yourself to the asparagus and the duck. We eat very informally. The servants can’t stand it as it limits their access to gossip.” He winked. “And by the by, I am honored you’ve come to me. No one bothers any more. But I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve. So what are your options?”

  “Well, the house in Connecticut will be sold. But it has a huge mortgage. I bought out my ex. I can only expect two hundred thousand. I have another one hundred grand in retirement after taxes, but that’s it other than a college fund for Lily, which I won’t touch obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “And I’ve tossed around some crazy ideas such as renting out bedrooms. I think the surfers wouldn’t mind the state of disrepair. They just want access to lodging close to the best waves.”

  “And?”

  “Or we could turn it into a luxury bed-and-breakfast.”

  “Or?”

  “I could take out a loan here. I will have to open a practice too. Eventually. But God knows it will probably take years to be licensed here at a guess. Until then I have a few clients via Skype, who I’m not sure will continue on.”

  “I see.”

  “But there are problems with every idea. I couldn’t turn it into a bed-and-breakfast without spending quite a bit of money renovating. Several issues must be corrected immediately.”

  “I know.” His mouth twisted. “Any other options?”

  “I could ask Antoinette to kick in something, but she has her own expenses and expanding businesses.”

  He tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Jean told me the same thing.”

  I carefully placed a few spears of asparagus on my plate and spooned a duck breast beside them. “Of course, I could also consider the rantings of one of my clients who keeps insisting I invest in a movie. But I only mention that for comedic relief.”

  Phillip Soames smiled. “How very American. Okay, then. You have gotten yourself into quite a financial bind. But let me think on it a bit. One option that immediately comes to mind is renting Madeleine Marie to someone and all of you renting another house for half Madeleine Marie’s income. At least you would still own the property. I know this might not be appealing.”

  “I thought of that, but I fear the insurance to rent it out in its condition would be impossibly high, and combined with the rent of another place, well, the idea of renting out rooms while we stay put is a better financial risk.”

  “Kate, I will think about it. But I do hope you’ll consider one last thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “My own personal offer of a loan, and if not a loan then an outright gift. I have no immediate heirs other than Edward and his sister. And I am embarrassed to admit that I have more than enough to share. Your grandfather has been my best friend for over fifty years. I would only ask you not to ever tell him about the loan or gift.”

  I immediately shook my head.

  “Wait,” he insisted, and raised one hand. “You know, Kate, sometimes it’s important in life to know when and how to
accept a gift. You cannot imagine how much joy I will receive knowing I might have helped put your entire family’s minds at ease. This would be as much for me as for you and your grandfather.”

  “I could never accept a gift or even a loan that large. But you are very, very kind to offer.”

  He appeared gravely disappointed.

  I cleared my throat and changed the subject. “How are you feeling, Phillip? My grandfather mentioned that you were a bit under the weather. Magdali has a wonderful cough medicine she makes. I’ll ask Lily to drop some off later today.”

  “Actually, I’m feeling much better, thank you. But I was just going to ask you how my nephew is faring.”

  I put my fork down and used my napkin. “I’m sorry, but I cannot discuss it. It’s unethical.”

  “I knew you would say that. But, as I understand it, you and Edward do not have a traditional doctor-patient relationship.”

  “Nevertheless, I prefer not to discuss anything. I am sorry, Mr. Soames.”

  “Phillip, please.”

  “Phillip.”

  “I ask because his children are coming for a visit at the end of the week. Without their mother.”

  “How nice,” I said. “I’d love to invite all of you to dinner the day they arrive. Will you come?”

  “I’d be delighted. It would be most welcomed.”

  “How long will they visit?”

  “It’s undetermined,” he continued. “Edward doesn’t know, but I received a letter from his wife asking for news.”

  “May I ask you your opinion regarding the marriage?”

  “So I’m to tell you things, but you will not tell me anything?” He smiled.

  “Exactly. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I understand.” He paused and used his napkin. “His wife, Claire, is very cordial with me. You must understand that she had to raise the children on her own when Edward was called for duty. And that happened repeatedly.”

  “Of course.”

  “She is a good mother.” He looked like he wanted to say more but instead he stopped.

  “But?”