“Yes, and she lives so far away,” Freddy said regretfully. The sight of the big, companionable Weitz family made her feel lonely for her own kin.
“I’ve seen a lot of her films. She’s simply divine. David tells me that your daughter, Annie, looks a lot like your sister.”
“Yes, it’s startling. But they’re different in many ways. I don’t think Annie will ever be an actress.”
“David says that Annie still wants to be a pilot. Are you happy about that? If I were her mother, I must say I wouldn’t be entirely thrilled with her ambitions, particularly now that you’ve given it up yourself. It seems such a difficult life for a little girl, not really … well, not really feminine, if you know what I mean. But I imagine you can talk her out of it. David hopes you can, but he’s probably told you, hasn’t he? Channel her gently in another direction, as it were—golf, for instance. Or tennis. Those are such useful sports. Not something you have to do all alone, like flying. I’m an avid golfer myself. Do you play, Freddy? No? What a shame! Well, if you ever decide to learn, I can steer you right to the best pro in town. With your coordination, or whatever it is that pilots have, you’d be an absolute natural! I have an idea—why don’t we lunch at the club and afterwards I’ll introduce you to him? You might want to make a date for lessons. One way or another, I’ll call you in a few days.”
“That would be lovely,” Freddy said, grinding out a smile. She didn’t choose to fly, at the moment, for reasons she hadn’t bothered to analyze, but that didn’t mean she’d “given it up.” And just what made Barbara think that you could talk anyone out of flying who really wanted to do it? Could any logic or persuasion, no matter how gentle—no matter how forceful—have stopped her? When you had that need, that urge to climb into the sky and make it your own, there was nothing a mother could do. Or should do. But Barbara was so warm, and she meant well.
“Move over, Babs,” said Dianne, another sister who unceremoniously took Barbara’s place. “Has she been telling you about her golf pro? Pay no attention. She’s really far gone. She’s the club champ, my dear, three years in a row. I think it’s an appalling bore, all that dreary golfer’s talk. But then I haven’t got time for golf anyway, with five children and another on the way. Oh, I know, it doesn’t show yet, but I hardly ever show until the sixth month … I’m lucky about that. You have only one child, I understand? That’s too bad.”
“Annie was born in the middle of the war. I had a job …” Freddy heard herself explaining.
“Bad luck! But then you’re so young. Only thirty-one, David says. You have time to have a dozen more if you want them, don’t you? Heavens, that does sound like a lot of work, doesn’t it? You should see the look on your face! Really, Freddy, I was only joking. But naturally David’s dying for children. That first marriage—well, they weren’t married long enough to have babies—I’m sure he’s told you about it. And you’ve stopped working, I hear. I have some friends with children who continue to cling to their careers, but I feel so sorry for them … there’s always that appalling tug in both directions—they can never do real justice to their jobs or their babies, no matter how hard they try. Of course, most of them want to work, I can respect that, but I can’t help thinking that they’ve made the wrong decision, and that they’ll regret it later. What’s your opinion?”
“I’ve never given it much thought,” Freddy answered. “Annie was brought up by a working mother and she hasn’t suffered as far as I can see. At least not yet.”
“Oh no, of course not!” Dianne cried. “After all, there was the war and all. And then starting your business. You couldn’t help it. But she must be so pleased that you’re home for her now. And when she gets to be a teenager, she’ll really need you. In fact, all your little ones are always going to need you, even when they’re grown up. Didn’t you just love being pregnant? I’m never so happy as when I am—I wonder why that is? Probably something primitive and atavistic. Now that you’re not working, I hope you’re free for lunch? I’ll call you next week and make a date. I’d love you to have lunch with me at home, and see my children.”
Who the hell had given Dianne the impression that she was never going to go back to work, Freddy wondered as she managed to return Dianne’s warm, friendly look. She hadn’t made a definite decision about Eagles. In a moment of physical weakness, she’d told Swede she wasn’t coming back to work, and she hadn’t changed her mind, but she was keeping her options open. Eagles was still … her baby. Oh well, Dianne was just an enthusiast. She must be a marvelous mother. And she, meant well.
“I’ve come to rescue you,” Bob, one of Dianne’s brothers-in-law, said to Freddy, pulling Dianne to her feet and appropriating her chair. “Has she started on the joys of labor yet, or the ecstasy of contractions? No? You’re lucky.” He gave Dianne a gentle spank and sent her away. He turned toward Freddy. “I’m Elaine’s husband—the middle sister—and she sent me over here when she saw you in Dianne’s maternal clutches. I know what you’re thinking, this family is overwhelming en masse—I had the same impression when I was first introduced to the Weitzes. I couldn’t tell them apart … and the way they idolize David! He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong, but not God Almighty. Just don’t tell his sisters or his mother that! What’s more, I hope you know that you won’t have to put up with the girls and their interests or opinions if you don’t choose to. Take us, for example—Elaine and I have only two children and no plans to have any more, we don’t play golf or tennis—just a little swimming to stay in shape. We’re the moderates of this family. We love chamber music, but we don’t try to cram it down people’s throats. If you like opera, so much the better, we say. If you prefer concerts, support the symphony. If ballet is your meat, well and good, and if you hate the ballet, there are plenty of other endeavors that need active patrons—the museum, UCLA, hospitals—whatever you feel passionate about. The main thing is to really pour yourself into a community project, don’t you think, Freddy? The great thing about having enough time and enough money is to get involved with the community, to give, not just to take.”
“I agree,” said Freddy, blinking at this dynamic man. “Absolutely.”
“Elaine and I had a feeling you would.” Bob resonated with satisfaction. “We were hoping that you and David could come to dinner next week. We’re having an interesting group, some of the music crowd, some of the art crowd—they’re all dying to meet you. Elaine will telephone you tomorrow and give you the details. You’ll be involved in something fascinating before you know it. And remember what I said about the Weitzes, even if we look alike, we’re all very different sorts of people.”
Oh no, thought Freddy, as Bob was replaced by Jimmy, another brother-in-law. You’re all very much the same; good, kind, warmhearted, devoted to each other, happy, productive, hospitable, secure in who you are and what you want from life. You’re enviable, a fortress of a family.
“Jimmy, everybody’s had a chance to talk to Freddy but me,” David’s mother said as Jimmy stood up at her approach. “And she didn’t come to visit you, she came to visit me—I should never have let the lot of you invite yourselves to dinner.”
As Jimmy withdrew, Susan Weitz regarded Freddy frankly, her hazel eyes admiring. “They’re all like children with a new puppy,” she said. “I’m surprised that they haven’t just jumped all over you and drooled and licked your pretty face. But they’re so thrilled to see David happy that you can’t blame them.”
“The sun seems to rise and set on David in his sisters’ eyes,” Freddy ventured.
“To a point that even I notice it,” David’s mother agreed laughingly. “My husband used to tell me that I was the worst offender. But when you have only one son and three daughters, it’s hard not to be partial. Especially when that son is David.”
“Yes,” agreed Freddy. “Especially David.”
“I’ve wondered for years when he’d fall in love again. He used to say he was too busy—what nonsense! I knew that when the perfect girl ca
me along he’d find time somehow. He was never meant to be a confirmed bachelor. Well! I don’t want to make you blush any more than you’re blushing already. But you will come back next week, won’t you, Freddy? I promise that the girls won’t be here—just the three of us, so that we can get to know each other. Do say you will!”
“I’ll try,” Freddy answered. “You have such wonderful paintings, Mrs. Weitz,” she said, looking around the room.
“Thank you, Freddy. My husband and I started the collection, and after he died I kept on buying art—it keeps me busy.”
Freddy picked up the silver bowl that stood on the small table by the side of her chair, lifted it to her nose and sniffed. “Did you make this yourself?” she asked.
“Why, Freddy!” Susan Weitz cried, delighted. “How ever did you know? I have my own, very, very special way of making potpourri. My mother’s secret recipe, actually. But most people never realize—they think I’ve bought it. And none of the girls has the patience to make her own. If you like, I’ll be so glad to show you how. It takes a long time, but it’s worth it.”
“Oh yes,” said Freddy, “I do realize that.”
The vines of champagne grapes sleep during the winter and do not wake until late February, when they begin to weep white sap from old wounds, wounds caused by the pruning of the vines the preceding March. The tears of the vine are like the sound of trumpets to a Champenois, for it is the signal that the growing season has begun. The irresistible rise of the pure, sticky sap forces buds to sprout on the branches of the bare vines. By the end of March, all the buds that will become clusters of grapes are open. The period from the weeping to the harvest, six or seven months in the future, is a time during which no one who grows champagne grapes, from the peasant with his few acres, to the proprietor of a Grand Marque, like Paul de Lancel, can ever be free of anxiety, threatened as they are daily, hourly, by the wide range of natural disasters that can affect the harvest.
By the end of October 1951, Paul and Eve de Lancel could finally take their ease. Paul had spent the summer watchfully supervising the entire Lancel enterprise, Eve running the château and caring for guests who charged in and out of Valmont with the regularity and relentlessness of a tide.
The harvest was completed all over Champagne; the army of ten thousand seasonal grape pickers, most of them miners and factory workers from other parts of France, some of them gypsies or itinerant agricultural workers, had finally departed, exhausted, satisfied, and good-natured, after ten days of labor during which they had slept in the dormitories that the big winegrowers built in the vineyards for their reception. They had eaten the five huge meals that were provided for them each day. They had drunk the pitchers of red wine that stood ready for them whenever they felt thirsty. They had sung and danced every night, and gone to the many fairs that beckoned throughout the area. When not eating, sleeping, drinking or socializing, the robust, strong-backed harvesters had worked without the slightest break from dawn to sunset, always bent in painful positions, doubled over, kneeling, crouching, even lying flat on the ground to pick the delicate fruit of the low-growing vines, never forgetting to take immense care not to bruise the skin of a single ripe grape and cause premature fermentation.
“I feel like a schoolgirl with all my exams over and nothing to worry about for almost five months,” Eve said to Paul at breakfast. “It’s most peculiar … I keep thinking that I should be worried about another week’s menus.”
“You look like a schoolgirl, but a rather tired one. What you should do is sleep really late. I want you to start to spoil yourself.” He reached across his plate, took her hand and kissed it. He loved looking at Eve in the morning, before she had put on her makeup or arranged her hair for the day. To Paul, her private face, at fifty-five, looked fifteen years younger than it did when she was all done up and ready to deal with the public.
“The trouble with getting up so early for months is that it becomes a habit—I don’t even need an alarm clock. As for spoiling myself, don’t worry, dearest, I have plans for both of us. After Thanksgiving with Freddy in California, and Christmas and New Year’s with Delphine and Armand in Barbados, we’ll come back to Paris so that I can order my new wardrobe at Balenciaga—I’ve reserved a great big expensive suite at the Ritz, on the Vendôme side of course … theaters, museums, restaurants … I plan to spend all this year’s profits—as long as you don’t ask me to drink another drop of champagne until next spring, I’ll be perfectly happy.”
“The people who truly appreciate champagne say it’s never better than before lunch—preferably for breakfast with poached eggs.”
“That sounds like a hangover cure.” Eve shuddered delicately, and poured herself another cup of tea.
“It only works for a hangover if you mix it half and half with stout … or with one-third orange juice, one-third cognac and two dashes of Cointreau and grenadine—or so I’ve heard.”
“Let’s not find out,” Eve suggested.
“Agreed.” Paul was a perfectly happy man as he sat back and looked toward the far horizon, over Lancel vineyards.
“Isn’t it wonderful to have Valmont to ourselves?” Eve said. “When that last English wine writer left yesterday, I wanted to kiss him, I was so thrilled to see him go. I’ve arranged to have all the guest bedrooms repainted while we’re away, and I’ve already chosen fabrics for new bedspreads and curtains. The rugs will do for another year.”
“Don’t you want to come out riding with me this morning? It’s such perfect weather,” Paul asked.
“No, I have a long-standing date to mulch my roses.”
“Why can’t one of the gardeners do that?”
“Anyone could, even a child. But I prefer doing it myself. Why should I let the gardeners have all the fun?” Eve asked.
“My mother always did her own mulching,” Paul remembered. “She said if she covered her rosebushes and nourished them properly in the fall, she never worried about them, no matter how hard the winter, and she never trusted anyone to do the job as well as she did.”
“And she was right, as always—or as almost always. I’m going to put on my gardening overalls. No more Balenciaga! Bliss!” Eve kissed him on top of his head, where his thick hair was still more blond than gray. “Have a good ride. See you at lunch, darling.”
Three and a half hours later, when a portion of her rose garden was covered inches deep in mulch, Eve was in her bathroom, trying to scrub her nails clean before lunch. Suddenly the housekeeper knocked. The sound was urgent.
“Madame! Madame! Come to the stables, come quickly!”
“Lucie? What is it?” Eve demanded as she hurried down the stairs.
“I don’t know, Madame. The stable boy told me to call you to come at once.”
Eve raced toward the stables, running as fast as she could. A fall, she thought, a fall, it must be a fall. Even as good a horseman as Paul could always take a spill.
In front of the gaping stable doors, Paul lay with his head cushioned on a horse blanket, five or six men standing around him, looking toward her almost guiltily, as if they hadn’t dared to move before she arrived.
“Have you telephoned the doctor?” she shouted, even before she was close enough to see what had happened.
The men, their caps in their hands, stood transfixed and silent. None of them nodded in assent to her command.
“Don’t you have any sense! Quickly, run to the house! Telephone!”
No one answered her. No one moved. “Paul? Paul?” Eve cradled his head in her arms. She looked up at the oldest stable hand. “Emile, for the love of God! How did he fall?”
“Monsieur Paul, Madame—well—he rode up, he stopped, he told me he had a headache. He said that it struck him the moment he rode out of the woods. He pointed to the back of his head. He slid one foot out of the stirrup, took the reins in his hand, and then, before I could help him—he—he slipped off the horse and fell to the ground … like that, you see, like that. I put him on the blanket.”
“Oh my God, why did you move him? You’ve hurt him!”
“No, Madame, I would never have moved him unless I knew … he was already …”
“Already? Already what! Are you crazy, Emile! Call the doctor!”
“I would have, Madame, I would have, but the doctor can’t help … he is gone, Madame.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, my poor Madame. He has left us.”
The only decision Eve was able to make, in the hours of confusion that followed Paul’s death, hours of such disbelief that she could not yet mourn, was that the funeral should not take place until all his children had gathered at Valmont. Delphine drove quickly from Paris and arrived within a few hours. It was she who took over the task of telephoning Bruno and Freddy. Eve was numb with shock as she wandered aimlessly, dry-eyed and wordless, from one room of the château to another, studying the views from different windows as if she were seeing them for the first time, caressing the carving of picture frames with cold fingertips, examining the patterns on needlepoint pillows, as if somehow she could break a mysterious code and find the unalterable clue that would explain to her what had happened to her life.
Freddy’s flight would be a long one. She was to leave via TWA for New York from Los Angeles. In New York she would catch an Air France flight to Paris, by way of the polar route, with stops at Gander and Shannon. In Paris, she would be met by Armand, who would drive her to Champagne.
Swede Castelli took Freddy to the airport. When the news had fallen on her, Freddy realized, in her grief, that Swede was the closest thing she had to family in Los Angeles … the one reliable constant in a world that had changed so quickly in the fifteen years they’d known each other.
“Listen, Freddy, try to get some sleep on the plane. You look beat,” he said as they approached the boarding gate. Freddy looked out through the glass to where the huge, four-engine Lockheed Constellation stood waiting out on the tarmac. An open van of baggage was slowly being unloaded into its baggage compartment.
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