Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  She was his only daughter, he'd always wanted a special happiness for her; he'd hoped to guard her from the violence he and his sons had dealt with so often over the years to protect their land; he wished her a life of contentment. He smiled then at his dreams, for Daisy was too much his daughter to neatly conform to some idyllic safe world—an enchanted world unreal and fanciful. But he didn't wish her to be this cruelly unhappy. "Must I promise?" he asked in slow deliberation because he wanted above all to give her back her happiness.

  "Yes," she said very low, knowing her father's impulse for action.

  "I promise then," Hazard reluctantly said. "But he's a stupid man."

  Twenty minutes later they were ensconced in a private compartment on a train to St. Louis, Daisy's baggage hastily transferred, their shoes off and bourbon-spiked cool lemonades in their hands. While not the most direct route home, the particular feature of immediate departure commended it. The station was receding from view, Chicago's densely built inner city rising like a monument to progress on either side. With the rhythm of the wheels a soothing melody of deliverance, the windows raised high against the oppressive heat, Hazard smiled across the small paneled chamber at his daughter and raised his glass.

  "To the future," Hazard proposed. "And your happiness." "To the future," Daisy agreed, her smile grateful. "To the mountains of home. And to the best father in the world."

  In the course of their journey to Montana, Daisy disclosed in an edited version, how her relationship with the Duc de Vec had evolved, what her feelings were concerning their future, and her reasons for leaving Paris. She detailed the complications of French divorce law as well as Isabelle's noncooperation. Since Hazard had been involved in the unsavory negotiations over Trey's divorce from Valerie last year, he was acutely aware how large sums of money generally expedited reluctant spouses and a sluggish judiciary. He wondered whether the Duc hadn't been completely honest with Daisy in terms of his divorce or hadn't he considered the efficacy of spending some of his fortune for his freedom? Or had he considered and not been sufficiently motivated?

  Knowing the Duc's reputation, Hazard suspected he hadn't been completely candid about the divorce. Familiar himself with attracting female attention, Hazard understood the fine line between utter honesty and politesse. In the years before his marriage, he'd managed with deft skill to accommodate a great number of ladies' amorous desires; one became well versed in the art of urbane gallantry. Even since his marriage he'd used that ex-pertise to good purpose in politely extricating himself from women intent on seducing him.

  "In a country so new to the legal process of divorce," he tactfully said to his daughter, "I expect a smoothly operating judicial mechanism isn't possible."

  "The Church, too, is adamantly opposed to the law."

  "So I understand."

  "The legitimists are antagonistic as well. Many of Etienne's class support the restoration of the monarchy, you know that." She shrugged, with a new Gallic insouciance, Hazard thought. "He was cut cold at the Opéra by the new clerical envoy to the Vatican… only one instance of old friendships now in jeopardy—over me."

  "Over the divorce, not you," Hazard didn't want Daisy to bear the burden of a divorce that might or might not occur.

  "I still feel responsible."

  He couldn't be as frank as he wished… reflecting that the Duc de Vec may have been merely amusing himself—again. So he said instead with a comforting smile, "Well, I'm pleased you're home with us—whatever the reason."

  Daisy's utterances, too, were less than frank. Her disclosure hadn't revealed the manner in which Etienne had practically urged her to return to Montana. Her humiliation over those reflections was too private to expose. She'd also not admitted her skepticism over Isabelle's alleged threat; Isabelle may have simply been a convenient excuse for Etienne to approve her leaving. "I'm happy to be back," Daisy said. "And I'm looking forward to working again."

  In that, at least, no subterfuge existed. A peace of sorts had enveloped her as they'd traveled West, leaving the cities behind, leaving Paris and all her painful memories far away. The rolling prairie passing by the train windows made Paris less real, mitigated the ghastly visions of Isabelle's malevolent face, put her great longing for Etienne in some perspective. Lessened it? So far she hadn't experienced that saving grace; a great aching emptiness still filled her heart.

  Would he actually write as he'd promised or telegram; had he already sent her letters, was he as miserable and dejected as she? But when she arrived in Helena, no letter greeted her; a false hope, in any event, with the speed of her journey—an omen, her unhappy soul prophesied.

  Feted by her family and friends, Daisy reentered the welcoming comfort of her familiar world. She discussed the gallery openings she'd attended and the plays—her new Worth gowns elicited extravagant compliments. She agreed with all her acquaintances that Paris was particularly beautiful in the spring.

  With so many millionaires in the wealthy mining town of Helena who traveled abroad or had Parisian friends, gossip about Daisy and the Duc de Vec had preceded her to Helena. Although no one was discourteous enough to blatantly inquire, Daisy was conscious of a burning curiosity. Even talk of divorce in the St. Germain enclaves precipitated the direst speculation on the crumbling of aristocratic mores. People were naturally inquisitive—the name de Vec represented immemorial custom.

  Empress did broach the subject once, for as a friend of the Duc during her estrangement from Trey, she understood the full measure of his charm.

  Daisy had come over to visit and see the children, so she and Empress were in the large sunny, nursery watching the youngsters at play.

  "Will Etienne be coming West?" Empress asked.

  Daisy shook her head first as though she didn't wish to answer and then briefly said, "No."

  A sense of tranquility pervaded the nursery, the family scene bathed in golden sunlight, felicity in all the smiling children's faces. So contrary, Daisy mused, to the oppressive disorder of her own life.

  Empress and Trey's young son, Max, was stacking blocks into towers with Belle, Valerie Stewart's daughter, who they were raising as their own. Empress's youngest brother Eduard, almost five now, helped the two toddlers steady their tippy structures.

  Born only a month apart, the toddlers, both dark-haired and nearly of a size, had immediately developed a natural affinity for each other from their very first meeting, like twins would, understanding each other's imperfect language when no one else could decipher it, showing concern for each other, sharing toys and special treats as though it were natural rather than unusual in children that young. And gazing at the happy scene of the three small children engrossed in their building, Solange sleeping peacefully nearby in her cradle, Daisy wistfully envied the tender image. Etienne had wanted a child and had she been less practical, she might be carrying his baby. She wished suddenly with an inexpressible yearning now that it was too late, that she'd been less pragmatic. Even if he were lost to her, she'd have his child to love and nurture, she'd still retain a part of him as vivid memory of their love.

  "Once Etienne's divorce is finalized," Empress said, interrupting Daisy's poignant reverie, "he'll certainly come West then."

  "The divorce will never be finalized." Her declaration, blunt and low, had the tone of an unequivocal edict.

  "You can't be sure!" Startled, Empress breathlessly took issue. "Surely de Vec will prevail."

  "You don't realize Isabelle's stance. Divorce is death, I think, succinctly describes her posture, and she has every intention of living a long life." Daisy reached down to help Max steady his block tower, her voice prosaic, as though she were commenting on the weather. The past weeks, while not assuaging the sorrow of her lost love, had allowed her considerable time to analyze the incontrovertible strength in Isabelle's defense. "Etienne can't leave France anyway… even if some benevolent god obliterated all the barricades Isabelle has put in his path, because his numerous business interests are all based on the
continent. And I can't live in Paris. My life is here."

  In any other woman, Empress might have questioned the firmness of her convictions, but Trey's family was unequivocably committed to their clan, to the Absarokee vision of "driftwood lodges" with a strength of character and indefatigable courage almost reverently devout. The Absarokee term for clan was ashammaleaxia, which translated as "driftwood lodges." As driftwood lodges together along the banks of the rivers, so the members of a clan clung together, united in a turbulent stream, intrinsically linked to and part of the assemblage of human and spiritual personages surrounding him or her.

  A more traditional woman wouldn't have questioned living in her husband's world, but Daisy epitomized a fundamentally nontraditional female role, for the Absarokee nurtured an egalitarian acceptance of mission regardless of gender. Men and women were equally eligible for social recognition and spiritual attainment.

  One of only a handful of female lawyers in America, her determination to enter that distinguished rank was based solely on her desire to help her people. And she'd succeeded against daunting odds for the same reasons. Like her father and her brothers, Daisy's allegiance was steadfastly with her clan.

  Empress realized with a deeply grateful recognition, that she was fortunate in not having had to face such a cruel dilemma. While her family estates were in France, competent managers and her oldest brother, Guy, were supervising their operation. And her spiritual world wasn't as dynamically interdependent.

  "Could Etienne consider living in Montana for a portion of the year?" she gently inquired.

  Daisy straightened from her assistance in tower building, her expression unreadable. "He oversees a dozen estates, major interests in three European railways, a chair on the Bourse, his consuming passion for polo during the season commands hours a day—not to mention the maintenance of the thousand-year de Vec family grandeur. That combination would be hard to manage from Montana."

  * * *

  For the next month, Daisy and Etienne's letters crossed the great distance separating them, renewing and sustaining their impassioned hopes. Until one hot July day in a Paris bereft of every soul fortunate enough to have escaped to the cool countryside, Bourges telephoned the Duc with some more disheartening news. Their appeal for the change of venue had been heard by a substitute magistrate because Beauchamp had fallen ill—he wasn't expected to live—and they'd lost again.

  "Bloody hell." Etienne sighed, leaning back against his chair and shutting his eyes.

  "I've never been so systematically struck down by wretched coincidence. It's like a damnable act of God," Bourges complained. "Beauchamp had agreed to be reasonable."

  "I suppose we can consider ourselves fortunate the reversal is only a loss in court for us," the Duc philosophically said, opening his eyes to the cool dimness of his study. "Beauchamp may not be so lucky."

  "Apparently it was his heart. You're right of course, although I'm hard-pressed at the moment to dredge up benign reflections."

  "So who denied us?"

  "Plaige. Damn his jumped-up petite noblesse heart. His wife's connections put him where he is today and it's gone to his head."

  "No doubt he was easily persuaded then by Charles's pur sang," Etienne ironically remarked. "Where do we go from here?"

  "I've a meeting with Letheve tomorrow."

  "A waste of time, Felicien."

  "Maybe not."

  Felicien had a doggedness one had to admire, but Etienne knew talking to Letheve was useless. The man followed Charles and Isabelle's dictates to the letter. "I'm going out to my river estate for a few days, so I won't be in touch," the Duc said, needing some solace after another bleak report from Bourges. "I'll call you when I return. And thank you," he finished, "for all your work."

  "We'll get them eventually."

  Etienne had to smile at his persistence. "I sure as hell hope so," he said.

  He hadn't been back to Colsec since Daisy left, the past month intensely busy with business commitments. He'd traveled to each of his estates to oversee the condition of the crops and vineyards, made two swift journeys to the south of France where new rail lines were being proposed by one of the companies he financed, and saw to the construction of additional stables at his racing stud.

  Daisy's presence immediately struck him as he walked through the rooms at Colsec, all so reminiscent of sweet memories: she'd eaten with him in the small flagstoned parlor and sat there on the Turkish sofa under the window; she'd laughed over her shoulder at him, coming down these stairs, her eyes sparkling with mischief; in that bed they'd made love and on that chaise one warm afternoon—for the first time, and there on the balcony, in the cool of the morning, in the balmy hours of the afternoon, at night under the light of the moon. And then he caught sight of the new bathroom added since his last visit, complete with modern plumbing so Daisy would have more comfort than his small tub afforded when she bathed. He'd forgotten. Walking through the large portal cut into the bedroom wall, he stood arrested by the spectacular view overlooking the garden. Floor to ceiling windows faced east to catch the morning light, and hand-painted tiles in rich rose and moss green trailed floral garlands over the sleek surface of the walls. A green marble bathtub, splendid and ornate with sculpted faucets of gold, dominated one wall. A dressing table built in under the eaves, lace-skirted and fitted out with perfumes and mirrors, awaited Daisy's pleasure.

  Like he.

  He had to walk outside along the river for a time to gain some control over his despair, to leave behind the haunting echoes and lost hopes, to come to terms at last with a sense of unutterable hopelessness. When he returned, he entered his small study and sat down to write to Daisy. Inundated with his melancholy memories of happier times, depressed with the most recent news from Bourges, the Duc was thoroughly discouraged as he began his letter. This cottage at Colsec, once his snug refuge, seemed empty and forlorn without the woman he loved and his words reflected his desolation.

  I'm sorry, he wrote, but I don't know if this divorce will succeed. The appeal for change of venue was denied. While Bourges is hopeful, in my present mood I find it difficult to agree with him. I'm at Colsec, missing you dreadfully, seeing you everywhere, unable to hold you or talk to you. At times like this your dour warnings reverberate like bells of doom, numbing hope, paralyzing action. While my feelings for you haven't changed, they're unfortunately incidental to the bleak future of my divorce.

  He added a few lines more about the prairie garden outside his window, how it reminded him or her, but he found it impossible to be cheerful and he closed without his usual promise to see her soon.

  Etienne's letter came at the worst possible time, for Daisy, too, was disconsolate over the numerous problems impeding their future. His joyless news seemed only to echo her own despair.

  Riding up into the hills to be alone, she lay under the shimmering aspen, contemplating the new mood of his letter, its brevity, the gloomy use of the words "bleak, numbing, paralyzing." Smoothing out the single sheet of paper on the grass, she touched the curving forms of the words, as if she could feel his presence with her gesture. Almost two weeks had passed since he'd written that day at Colsec, and she tried to imagine what he'd looked like, seated at the small desk in his study on the ground floor. Had he been barefoot as he was so often at Colsec, was his hair wet from swimming in the river, had Gabriella brought him a citrus punch in a tall glass laced with kir, as he liked?

  What had he meant when he'd said the divorce wasn't going to succeed? Only the present procedural step—or ultimately?

  She knew the answer, of course, to her rhetorical question.

  She'd known the answer to that query months ago in Paris.

  Only her heart had refused to accept it.

  That night she sent Etienne the message she'd been contemplating for weeks, defining her feelings, courteously and rationally acquiescing to his hopeless outlook.

  I don't honestly know how to begin, she wrote, struggling for the words to separate
herself from the man she loved almost more than duty. Tears glistened in her eyes, her throat ached with suppressed sobs as her pen reluctantly transcribed the unhappy words. Nor am I sure of the wisdom of my actions. But when I read your letter from Colsec, my heartfelt to the ground, she went on, unconsciously expressing her grief in the words of her people. Your despair was my despair, your bitter taste of lost hope—mine. We've never been rational, Etienne, to think we could overcome the powerful age-old prejudices of your class. Although I care less about the actual divorce—you know my feelings on the whitemen's customs—I do care profoundly about the duty we owe to our different cultures. I love you with the same passion we first knew at Colsec, and I miss you every moment, but I can't marry you.

  Our allegiances are to different worlds.

  Worlds separated by distance and convictions.

  Promise me we can be friends at least, so I won't have to lose you completely.

  * * *

  The Duc hurled her letter across the room after reading it, and then swearing, was obliged to go and fetch it to reread the horrendous words. Damn her black eyes! Friends? he fumed. She wanted to be friends? Not likely! he caustically raged. She must have found someone else, was his immediate next thought. Damn her and damn her treacherous faithlessness!

  The third time he retrieved the perfidious letter, he ironed out the crumpled paper with the flat of his hand and went over her words slowly, as if some hidden meaning resided beneath the brief repudiating sentences. She was definitely stating she wouldn't marry him, he decided ten readings later, no matter how he interpreted the phrases, regardless of her protestations of love.

  Rage filled his mind at her damnable noble-sounding phrases, at the utter practicality of her tone, at the possibility—his more cynical contemplation deciphered—a new suitor amused the beautiful, hot-blooded Miss Black. A furious, impotent anger swelled inside his brain at the thought of another man touching Daisy and with that implacable image in mind, an overwhelming impulse to strike out and hit something gripped his senses. Friends? She wanted to be friends like bridge partners or asexual pairings at the tennis doubles at Trouville each summer. He couldn't imagine being friends with the seductive, sensual Daisy Black. She had to be joking! She'd found someone else, it was plain to see, like she'd fallen into his bed with teasing laughter and wanton eyes, and he said that plain and simple in the telegram he sent off.