The Woman from Paris

by Santa Montefiore

  “As you intended, she was shocked and hurt by the revelation in the DVD. But I’m going to find her.”

  “Well, if you’ve come here in the hope of discovering where she is, I have no idea.” He shrugged carelessly. “And if I did know, why on earth do you think I’d tell you?”

  David wanted to reach over and punch him. It wouldn’t have been difficult; the man was half his size and as soft as jelly, but he held back. There was no point either in taunting him with the obvious fact that he would no longer be employed to run George’s estate. David kept his dignity and stood up, thrusting his hands in his pockets to prevent himself from doing something stupid. “I wish you luck, Julius. Once it’s made public that you falsified the DNA test, I don’t imagine you’ll find much work in this town. I’m surprised: for a man as meticulous as you, your actions were extremely clumsy.”

  Julius smiled like a snake. “And I wish you luck, David. You’ll need it to find Phaedra. I imagine by now she’s losing herself in the deepest depths of America. A girl like Phaedra is easy to lose. No roots, no ties, nothing.” He clicked his fingers. “Gone, like a flame in the wind. You can see yourself to the door.”

  David’s veneer of calmness crumbled once he reached the pavement. He began to shake, and he staggered to his car, where he remained for a long while, taking deep breaths and fighting the rising nausea. His head swam so that he was unable to organize his thoughts. Where was he to look now? Who did he know who knew her? No one.

  He left London defeated. All he could do now was hope that she’d have the courage to contact him.

  When he reached Fairfield Park, he found his mother and Margaret up at the folly with Dr. Heyworth. The three sat talking in front of the fire like refugees from a terrible tornado, seeking shelter in the little house on the hill. Of course, the subject was Phaedra—a subject they were wearing thin with their incessant discussion.

  When David burst in, they were shocked by his unkempt appearance. It was as if he hadn’t slept or bathed for days. Antoinette was wrenched out of herself at the sight of her son’s despair, and suddenly hers paled into insignificance. “David, are you all right?” she asked. He looked like a man who had lost everything.

  “Dear boy, come and sit down,” said Margaret gently. “She’s gone, hasn’t she?”

  David flopped onto the sofa beside his mother and put his head in his hands. He didn’t feel at all embarrassed to show his unhappiness. They might as well know the truth. “She’s left and taken everything with her,” he said. “She’s not coming back.”

  Antoinette put a hand on his shoulder. “You love her very much, don’t you?” He couldn’t answer, and Antoinette didn’t know what else to say. She could offer no words of comfort.

  “I don’t know where’s she’s gone. She could be anywhere. I suspect she’s tossed her phone into the Thames, because she doesn’t return my calls or texts. That bloody Julius Beecher wasn’t any help, either.”

  “You went to see Beecher?” Margaret was appalled.

  David lifted his head out of his hands. “What a sick man he is.”

  “In what way is he sick?” Dr. Heyworth asked.

  “He’s got a massive wall of photos of Dad, like he was obsessed with him. It’s weird. I think he was jealous of Phaedra because she came between them. You know how close Dad and Julius were. Julius was like his shadow, always one step behind, but always there. Then after Dad died, he tried to have Phaedra for himself, as if he wanted to step into Dad’s shoes. Suddenly, there was the chance, through her, of becoming Dad, with a big fat bank balance and the Frampton Sapphires. It was too good an opportunity to miss. But she rejected him, as any girl of good sense and taste would, so he betrayed her.”

  “You mean he sent the DVD on purpose, knowing it would expose Phaedra?” Antoinette exclaimed, looking at Dr. Heyworth. “I’m so naive.”

  “There’s nothing wrong in believing the best of everyone. It’s an admirable quality, Antoinette,” said Dr. Heyworth gently.

  “I’m not so sure,” she replied, lowering her eyes. “I’ve been much too trusting recently.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me at all that that odious man sent the DVD on purpose, and it worked,” said Margaret. “What a weasel.”

  “Well, he’s lost everything now, too. I don’t imagine anyone will employ him when they find out what he’s done.”

  “He had already lost everything; that’s why he was so ready to bring Phaedra down with him,” said Margaret wisely. “A man commits professional suicide only when he’s got nothing more to lose.”

  David shook his head regretfully. “I should have gone after her when she left. What an idiot I am! She was as much to be pitied as you, Mum. Really, I know I shouldn’t say that, and you won’t want to hear it, but I believe it’s true. She loved Dad, and he lied to her, as he lied to you. You both have more in common than you realize.” Antoinette listened but said nothing. She wasn’t ready to be so forgiving.

  “I think we all need time to let the dust settle,” Margaret suggested diplomatically. “It’s been a terrible shock, and we all feel bitterly deceived. We can’t control what will happen in the future, and right now, I don’t think we’re ready to project. Que serà, serà, isn’t that what the Spanish say? What will be, will be. We all need something to do. We can’t mope about aimlessly like lost dogs.”

  “This folly was my hobby,” said Antoinette mournfully. “But now it’s finished.”

  “There’s always plenty to do in the gardens,” Dr. Heyworth suggested.

  David rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “What about opening a farm shop?”

  The suggestion appeared to come out of nowhere. Margaret and Antoinette looked at him in surprise. “I think that’s an inspired idea,” said Margaret. “I can’t imagine why we didn’t think of it before.”

  “Where would we put it?” Antoinette asked.

  “In one of the farm buildings. We’ve plenty of barns to choose from,” said David.

  “There’s nothing like it anywhere near Fairfield,” Dr. Heyworth added enthusiastically. “It would be very popular.”

  “We could have animals,” Antoinette suggested with mounting excitement. “Hens . . . and cows . . .”

  “And pigs,” David added, thinking of Phaedra. “Piglets are very cute.”

  Margaret narrowed her eyes. Cute wasn’t an English word or one that David would normally use. “I sense someone else’s fingerprints all over this idea,” she said.

  “It’s Phaedra’s,” David confessed bashfully.

  “It’s a good one,” said Dr. Heyworth. “At least I think so.”

  “What else did she suggest?” Margaret asked.

  “To open the park to the public.” David imagined that was one step too far for his grandmother, but she put her head on one side as if weighing up the pros and cons.

  “It’s not such a bad idea. Fairfield is built to be admired and enjoyed.”

  “We could open it during the summer only, for perhaps a couple of weeks or so,” said Antoinette brightly. “It would give Barry and me an incentive to make the gardens as wonderful as possible. There’s a lot more I’d like to do around the lake. I’d like to have ducks, for a start.”

  “Ducks, Antoinette? I think you should have geese and swans,” Margaret remarked.

  “Don’t swans belong to the queen?” said Dr. Heyworth.

  “I’m sure Her Majesty would lend us a few if we asked her nicely.” Margaret grinned. “So how about it? Are we all agreed? This will be our project. No more wallowing—let’s put ourselves to work.”

  Antoinette glanced anxiously at David. “I’m in,” she said.

  “Me, too,” he answered flatly, but he knew his heart wouldn’t be.

  “Then that’s settled.” Margaret turned her hawkish gaze on Dr. Heyworth. “Any good with animals, Dr. Heyworth?”

  “I’m sure I could put my hand to anything,” he replied with a smile.

  “Then you’re in, too.”
r />   “It would be a pleasure to help.”

  “Good.” Margaret looked at her watch. “I say, it’s sherry time. Shall I give Harris a call?”

  30

  The idea, born with a roar, petered out into a squeak. Antoinette talked a lot about the farm shop and bought a book in which she wrote down endless lists of ideas, but she never actually did anything about them. David helped her choose the barn and planned the car park, piggery, and henhouse, but nothing came of those decisions. Dr. Heyworth found a suitable manager who had been a patient of his. He was aptly named Toby Lemon and used to run a chain of grocery stores before he left to start up on his own. The recession had put a stop to his plans, and now he worked for the local supermarket, which he hated. But while there was no business, there was no job to offer him. Margaret tried to fire Antoinette with enthusiasm, but she was aware that only one person could restore her spirit. It was going to be impossible to replace Phaedra.

  The summer days lengthened, the crops grew tall and yellow, the weather got warmer, yet David’s heart was as bleak as midwinter. He kept his pain to himself, although everyone knew the cause. Joshua, Roberta, and Tom continued to come down on weekends, but the atmosphere was heavy. Every now and then they’d get all excited about the farm shop and Tom would threaten to leave his job in London and come down to run it, but then they’d leave and a few more weeks would pass before they discussed the topic again.

  David didn’t join in the family gatherings as he used to. He remained in his house, reading his books, or on the farm, working. At harvest time he drove his tractor well into the night, carting grain from the combines to the barns. On rainy days he swept the floors and heaped the corn. He took solace from being busy. If he was busy, he didn’t have time to think of Phaedra and wonder what she was doing and whether she ever thought of him.

  Often he gazed up at the moon as he walked Rufus around the lake at night and imagined her staring up at it, too, remembering the time they spied on Antoinette playing the piano; the first time he had held her hand; the sudden realization that he loved her. He wondered whether she still cared for him, or whether she’d moved on as easily as she’d moved away. After all, they had enjoyed a mild flirtation. There had been nothing in her behavior to suggest that she’d been “desperately, deliriously, and overwhelmingly” in love with him, as she’d been with his father.

  Since she had made no effort to get in touch with him, she obviously had no desire to see him. He vowed to let her go.

  At the beginning of September, Antoinette found she was feeling less resentful towards Phaedra. She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t miss her. The girl had brought sunshine into the house. Since her departure Fairfield Park had been cast in shadow, and no one laughed anymore. Even Roberta, at first triumphant that her suspicions had been right, seemed ashamed, as if embarrassed to have been so dogged in her determination to expose her. The truth was that Antoinette wished that Phaedra was George’s daughter after all, and that she would come back and things would return to the way they had been before everything had gone so terribly wrong. She wanted Phaedra back, untarnished.

  It was a dull, rainy afternoon when she suddenly felt the urge to visit George’s grave. She hadn’t been there since the dreadful DVD exposure in the spring, and up until that moment she hadn’t wanted to. She had felt nothing but resentment and fury, but now, due to the passing of time, she just felt sad. George had taken so much, and he didn’t even know it.

  She drove into Fairfield, parked her car on the verge, and hurried through the drizzle to the church beneath a large golfing umbrella. The building looked gray and austere in the rain. The windows were dark, the big door shut, but there, leaning against George’s shiny new headstone, was a bunch of yellow roses. They glowed out of the gloom like a beacon of hope, and her heart leapt at the thought that Phaedra might have come back. She stared at the flowers, her spirit injected with a shot of optimism. Was it possible that all the while she’d been missing her, Phaedra was right here in Fairfield? She looked around in a fever of anticipation, but the graveyard was empty except for a few mean-looking crows. She dropped her shoulders in disappointment. If it wasn’t Phaedra, it could only be Margaret. She was the person in the family who came regularly to church. She bent down and picked up the flowers. They were fresh and sweet-smelling and covered in little drops of rain.

  “Oh, George, do you realize the trouble you’re in?” she said quietly. “Do you have any idea of the wreckage you’ve left behind? You’ve jumped ship and left us all to crash on the rocks.” It felt strangely good to unburden her thoughts to the man who had inspired them. “I now realize that perhaps you did love me and that you loved Phaedra, too. You probably loved us both in different ways, as Margaret suggested. Perhaps together we completed the woman you wanted to be with. I one half, Phaedra the other. It’s odd, because I feel incomplete without her, as if we really are two halves of a whole. I miss her, George. I miss her very much. She brought joy into our home, and now it’s gone. It’s going to take me a while to forgive you—it’s taken years for your mother to forgive your father for the same transgression, so imagine, I’m not there yet. But I am trying. Wherever you are, if you can hear me, know that I am doing my best—and if you have any power at all, bring her back.” Her eyes welled with tears as she replaced the roses against the headstone. Instead of returning to her car, she walked through the churchyard to the wooden gate in the hedge that led to Dr. Heyworth’s house.

  A moment later she stood at his conservatory door and knocked on the glass. The lights were on, so she knew he must be at home. She tried the door; it opened easily. “Hello!” she called out. “It’s me, Antoinette!” She sniffed. Wasn’t that the smell of burning? Seized with a sudden panic she hurried through the conservatory and down the corridor to the kitchen. “William! William! Are you all right? It’s me, Antoinette! William!”

  The kitchen was full of smoke, and Dr. Heyworth was hastily opening windows to let it out. When he saw Antoinette, he looked embarrassed. “Oh dear, you’ve caught me burning cake.”

  “Cake?” she exclaimed. “Is that what it is?”

  “I was making you a lemon cake. But I got distracted.”

  “Good Lord, it looks like the place is on fire.”

  He bent down and pulled out of the oven a round tin of what looked like charcoal. “Here it is. Not very appetizing, is it?”

  “Not your best,” she said with a smile. “I’m sorry I barged in.”

  “You came through the church gate, I assume.”

  “Yes. It’s become a habit.”

  “It’s a habit I like. I tell you what. Fancy going out for tea?”

  She laughed. “I haven’t been out for tea since I was at school and my parents used to take me out on Sundays.”

  “Then let’s make a new habit. Let’s go and have a cup of tea and a slice of cake in Oliver’s.”

  “I’ve always walked past Oliver’s but never been in.”

  “How little you know your own town, Lady Frampton.” He grinned at her. “What shall I do with this?” He held up the smoking cake.

  “Oh, it’s a shame to throw it away,” Antoinette joked. “I’d save it for a special occasion.”

  “Good idea.” He placed it on the counter. “Now, let me go and change my shirt.”

  Oliver’s was steamy, the tables full of damp people who had sought refuge from the rain. They chose a table at the back and ordered. Antoinette found the smell of freshly baked bread and ground coffee comforting. She looked across at Dr. Heyworth and found him comforting, too.

  “I went to visit George’s grave,” she told him. “I hadn’t been since the spring. I felt it was time I had a word with him.”

  Dr. Heyworth smiled at her kindly. “Do you feel better?”

  “Yes, I do. I don’t know whether he heard anything of what I said to him, but at least I got it off my chest.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You see, Margaret held on to her re
sentment for so long it made her sour. I don’t want to turn out like that.”

  “You won’t, Antoinette, because you’ll forgive George. There’s nothing else you can do. Resenting him won’t change what he did, nor will it make you feel better; it will just fester and make you miserable. So accept the past, let it go, and move on. That way you won’t allow it to ruin your future.”

  “And what of Phaedra, William? What about her?”

  Dr. Heyworth registered the anguish in her eyes, anguish that hadn’t been there when she had spoken about George. “You miss her, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Very much—and I feel bad for having loathed her like I did. It was unfair of me.”

  “You had to go through that process in order to get here. Only time could allow you the perspective.”

  “But she’s gone forever.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “It’s just so unfair. Everyone’s been pulled down by her absence. She was with us for such a short time, and yet she made a big impression. Fairfield was such a happy place. Now we all mope about like children at a party once the entertainer’s gone. Tom sleeps all day, Joshua sulks in the drawing room reading the papers, Roberta just looks guilty all the time, as if it’s her fault Phaedra left. I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

  “They will, in time.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She grinned at him guiltily. “I can’t even get my act together to start the farm shop. It’s such a good idea, but I don’t have the incentive without Phaedra. I know we’d have had such fun doing it together, like when we restored the folly. Do you remember when we danced? How we laughed, all of us together. That’s a lost afternoon we’ll never get back.”

  “But there will be more afternoons like it, perhaps better. Don’t dwell in the past, Antoinette. Live in the now.”

  She grinned at him as the waitress placed tea and cake on the table. “I think this might taste a little better than your cake,” she said with a chuckle. “What do you think?”

  * * *

  The following day as she knelt on the bank of the lake, placing the weeping willow into the hole Barry had dug, she thought of William. She smiled at the memory of him burning the cake, the sheepish expression on his face when he had seen her standing in the doorway, and their tea at Oliver’s. She looked forward to his visits. He had been a great source of comfort during the last six months, the only person who managed to make her feel light inside.