Aurélien’s voice pulled her out of her reverie.
“No, not at all,” Frédérique said. “You have a nice family. …”
He chortled, before saying, “Nice? I don’t know about that. …”
He was thinking about Alexandre with a sort of worry he’d never felt for him before.
“Let’s toast,” he suddenly said to everyone around the table. “To the Laverzacs!”
They’d all had quite a bit to drink already but raised their glasses enthusiastically. When dinner was over and they headed for the main living room, Frédérique found a way to be the last to leave the room with Laurène.
“Nice evening, wasn’t it?” Frédérique asked with a slightly hesitant voice.
Laurène stopped in front of her and, in the blink of the eye, understood that a confrontation between the two was inevitable.
“Very. …”
They were waiting, gauging each other, neither knowing exactly what the other one was thinking. No matter that Laurène had tried to be friendly with Frédérique, that she’d been patient with her, she now felt that she had to deal with her head on.
“Honestly, Frédérique,” she said. “Do you find Jules attractive?”
“Very.”
The straightforwardness of the answer unsettled Laurène.
“More than you think, as a matter of fact,” Frédérique continued. “But I wasn’t the one who made the move on him, the first time.”
Laurène, dumbstruck, straightened.
“The first time?” she blurted out.
Frédérique, a bit tipsy, shrugged.
“Six months ago, he was looking for solace in nightclubs because you were pushing him away. But now, he’s looking for solace because of, what do you think?”
Laurène was looking at Frédérique, shocked.
“Now …”
“Are you blind or what? Or do you just refuse to see what’s there? He exists, you know. He exists outside of you!”
Frédérique was shouting and Laurène took a step back.
“What a naïve idiot, you are! Jules isn’t some nice boy! He’s so much more than your preconceived ideas about relationships. You have no clue. You’re going to marry him, all blissful, and think you’re going to be able to keep him home with nice drapes in the bedroom windows?”
“I won’t let you …”
“You won’t let me what? I’m at Aurélien’s here, not your house! And God knows that naïveté aggravates Aurélien! Jules is just like him. Your goody-goody attitude must drive him nuts at times! But he promised. … His sense of duty, that’s his weakness! So have a bunch of babies and you’ll be all set.”
Laurène couldn’t breathe. Frédérique’s words were making her dizzy.
“Jules is …” she said.
“You don’t know who Jules is!” Frédérique screamed, losing all control. “He’s much too good for you!”
Livid, Laurène leaned against a sideboard. Feeling panicky, she muttered, “What are you doing in Aurélien’s bed if you’re so crazy about Jules?”
“I was biding my time,” Frédérique said in a harsh voice. “Until now, I was comfortable in there. Aurélien is a good man. You don’t get that, either. You’re the type that gets everything wrong. Why do you think that Jules looks at me the way a dog looks at a bone? This castle is big enough, you can make love on every floor!”
Laurène pushed herself off the sideboard and rushed at Frédérique.
“Are you done spewing your venom? You think I’m stupid enough to jump at whatever you say and break up with Jules? You might sleep with both the father and the son all over the damn place—I find that despicable—but it’s not going to make me lose what I have. Jules is marrying me!”
Screaming at each other this way, they didn’t hear Aurélien come into the room. They noticed him at the same time.
“Are you girls all done?”
He was pale as a ghost and had difficulty speaking.
“We can hear you clear across the house,” he continued. “Laurène, go into my office, please.”
Laurène took a step, but Jules also walked into the dining room. Aurélien looked at his son and, suddenly, leaned on the back of a chair, clutching his throat.
“Jules,” he moaned.
Jules ran to Aurélien just as the older man was crashing to the floor.
Jules hung up the phone. He’d called Dr. Auber, rang for an ambulance, and told Robert, who decided to leave Paris right away.
He turned to look at his father. He seemed unconscious, and yet his eyes remained open. Jules and Louis-Marie had carried him to his bed. Ever so carefully, Jules had undone Aurélien’s collar, then his belt. He felt cold, disconnected from everything else. Louis-Marie, scared by his brother’s expression, had forced him to sit down. On the side of the bed, legs crossed, Jules could do nothing but wait. He hadn’t heard anything of the conversation among Laurène, Frédérique, and Aurélien. Besides, he wasn’t thinking about that. He wasn’t thinking about anything.
“Jules?” Louis-Marie whispered. “He’s going to be okay.”
Jules wasn’t looking at his brother. He wasn’t even looking at Aurélien now. He was contemplating emptiness. Louis-Marie went over to him and shook him lightly.
“Auber is going to be here any minute. … He didn’t say anything on the phone?”
Jules raised his shoulders and forced a smile.
“He’s not old,” Louis-Marie said, “and there’s never been anything wrong with him.”
A voice came from the staircase, and a great weight came off his shoulders.
Dr. Auber gave Aurélien an injection, took his pulse and his blood pressure, and asked what exactly had happened. Louis-Marie told him what he knew. He could see Jules keeping his teeth clenched. Auber finally told them to step out of the room for a moment.
In the hallway, Louis-Marie cleared his throat before asking, “What are we going to do with Frédérique?”
Jules finally reacted. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, his voice dead.
In front of Frédérique’s door, he didn’t bother knocking and went right in. She was sitting on the side of the bed, still dressed.
“So?”
Ignoring the question, Jules looked at her for a few moments.
“I think it would be best if you left, Frédérique,” he finally said. “Whenever you can. … Tomorrow. … He’s going to be taken to the hospital in Bordeaux. If you want to see him or know how he’s doing, you can call Auber. …”
He hates me, she thought, and she was dying to go to him.
He was still looking at her, without seeing her. She realized that and simply nodded. He said nothing else and walked out of the bedroom. He found Louis-Marie still in the hallway, next to the doctor. Alex was also there, but Jules paid him no attention at all. He fiddled with his empty pack of cigarettes until the ambulance arrived.
The sun was slowly rising on Fonteyne, as though with difficulty. Fernande was silently taking slices of toast and coffee to the library, where it had been a long night. Arriving at the Bordeaux hospital at four in the morning, Robert was able to see Aurélien. Paralyzed on one side, he’d regained consciousness but was unable to utter a single word. Robert was pessimistic. The brothers had returned to Fonteyne at seven, and no one had been able to sleep, except for Pauline. Dominique had waited until sunrise to take Frédérique to a Bordeaux hotel. The young woman had only one piece of luggage and said nothing for the entire drive.
Jules, leaning on the sliding ladder, seemed to have regained a bit of calm. Knowing that he was in a state of shock, Robert had been particularly attentive toward his brother.
There was nothing particular to be done. Transporting Aurélien to Paris wouldn’t help his case. Partial and progressive improvement might come as time passed, if he made it at all. But Robert was clear about the fact that Aurélien would remain physically diminished. As for Fonteyne, Jules had full power and could easily take care of things with
out his father.
And so they were all together in the library, staggering with fatigue, the windows letting in the weak early morning sun.
“I’m going to my bedroom,” Robert finally said. “I think you should all try and get some rest, too.”
He went over to Jules and asked him if he’d like a sleeping pill. Jules shook his head with impatience, saying that a sleepless night wasn’t going to kill him and that he had tons to do. But he accompanied Robert to the foot of the staircase, waiting for more information or, against his better judgment, a glimmer of hope.
Robert, who understood his distress, put a hand on the railing, and said, “I’ll free myself up for a few days so I can stay. But I want you to wrap your brain around one thing, Jules. … Whether I’m here or not won’t change anything. If he does make it, Dad will be in a bad way for a long time. …”
Jules seemed to have a hard time accepting this. He swallowed his saliva a few times, saying nothing.
“When he comes back home,” Robert continued, “if he ever comes back, he’s going to need a live-in nurse. … We’ll talk about it then. …”
Robert sighed, sadder about his brother than his father. He knew that Aurélien was the very heart of Jules’s existence.
“Are you scared?” he asked Jules with affection.
“Very. …”
Jules’s very real suffering went beyond anything Robert could say. He squeezed his brother’s shoulder and went up the stairs.
Jules tried to smile. He’d been sitting at Aurélien’s side for more than an hour. His father’s eyes seemed to be filled with the words he couldn’t speak. Jules grabbed the inert hand on the sheet, caressed it, and then gently set it back down. The inarticulate sound coming out of Aurélien’s mouth startled Jules. Aurélien raised his head and was desperately trying to say something to his son.
“Don’t try to move,” Jules said. “You’re going to be okay, you know. …”
Aurélien let his head fall back down on the pillow and averted his eyes. All that he’d kept quiet for thirty years, he now wasn’t able to utter.
“Please, Mr. Laverzac. You have to let your father rest.”
A nurse was gently shaking Jules’s shoulder. He regretfully got to his feet and left the room. In the hospital’s parking lot, he ran into Pauline.
“I was waiting for you,” she said. “Bob dropped me off on his way back to Paris. I brought a radio for Aurélien. Do you think that … No, of course not. Oh well. …”
She climbed into the car with Jules.
“The truth is,” she said, “Bob doesn’t want you to be alone too much. … According to him, you shouldn’t be coming here every free second you have. That on top of everything at Fonteyne …”
That Pauline would try to tell him what to do made Jules smile.
“You’re funny, Pauline,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “You’ve told me that a hundred times before.”
She was laughing, beautiful and carefree as always.
“I could use Louis-Marie’s help,” he said. “How long can you guys stick around Fonteyne?”
“For as long as you need us to stay,” she said, suddenly serious.
As soon as they arrived at Fonteyne, Jules headed for Aurélien’s office. He asked Fernande for coffee and a steak, then sat at his father’s desk and began working. Laurène soon joined him to take a look at the paperwork Frédérique hadn’t had time to handle. A few times she put a document under Jules’s nose, but he remained absorbed in his thoughts.
She was getting distressed at him being so distant and silent, and then he suddenly raised his head and asked, “What happened in that dining room before I got there?”
The allusion to the horrible scene froze Laurène for a second, and then she said, “Nothing special. We’d had too much to drink, all of us. Aurélien, he’s always drinking an awful lot …”
Jules was staring at her, waiting for more.
“Jules,” Laurène said, slowly, “were you attracted to that girl?”
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“I was attracted to her, yes.”
“And you love me?”
He got up and went over to her. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“I know it’s not the ideal time to talk about all of this,” she managed to say.
He took her in his arms lovingly.
“Yes,” he said. “I do love you.”
He seemed sincere, desperate.
“Did you sleep with her this winter?”
“Yes.”
“Often?”
“Once.”
He squeezed her, aware that he was causing her pain.
“Listen, Laurène … I have an awful lot of worries right now, but I understand yours. If that changed something for you, if it’s too much too take …”
She said nothing, and he gathered the courage to continue, “Do you want to leave me, Laurène?”
She was now sobbing. She freed herself from his embrace, took two steps back, and looked him right in the eyes.
“Never,” she said. “I’ll never leave you.”
He had the strange feeling that she’d just found him guilty and forgiven him at the same time. A soft knock on the door interrupted them.
“We’re here to listen to whatever you’ve democratically decided for us to do!” Alex said as he walked into the room.
Jules was in no mood for that kind of humor, and he shot his brother a murderous look. Louis-Marie sat on an armchair.
“Very funny,” Jules muttered.
As Fernande was coming in at that moment, with the meal he’d ordered half an hour earlier, he asked her to tell Lucas to come over right away. Then he began eating, all the while explaining what he’d planned for the next few days. Louis-Marie listened intently, both amused and captivated by his brother’s authority, as Alex sulked. Jules’s decisions and arguments, which he presented one after the other, seemed irrefutable to the others. When it came to Fonteyne, Jules was always on top of his game.
Night had fallen. Jules didn’t take Aurélien’s seat at the dinner table. The family was rallying around him, except for Alexandre. Jules decided not to let things fester, and he took his brother aside after dinner. He explained to him that this was hardly a good time to sulk and pout, and that he was expecting everybody to be as efficient as possible in Aurélien’s absence. In the middle of Jules’s speech, Alexandre had a fit of anger, saying he’d had it up to here being treated like an employee at Fonteyne.
“I’ve had enough of you and Dad’s attitude,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, this entire place is making me sick to my stomach!”
Stunned, Jules took a couple of seconds to reply.
“Are you out of your mind, Alex?” he said. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Yes, I do! What I’m saying is that I’m tired of it all and I’m out of here. You have no need for me, just like you don’t need anybody. And I need some fresh air!”
“You can have some fresh air later. There’s no way you’re leaving. You stay here and calm down, and then you do your work and leave me the hell alone!”
Jules was going too far—he realized that—but he was set on controlling Alexandre. That his brother would choose his father’s hospitalization as the time to shun his responsibilities and try to leave Fonteyne enraged Jules. He was now expressing the contempt he’d had for Alex for a long time. But he was absorbed too much in his own anger, and Alex’s reply completely took him by surprise.
“Either you leave me alone here, Jules, or you can go to hell at the next board meeting. Aurélien won’t be able to vote, and I’m going to vote against you. He shamelessly favored you, but contrary to what you might think, this is not a bad time for me to get out of here.”
Jules had the strong feeling that something irreparable had happened for the second time in a couple of days.
“I understand if you don’t love me,” he admitted with
stunning humility, “but how can you not love Fonteyne?”
He was so sincere he was bordering on naïve.
“Fonteyne!” Alex said. “It’s your Fonteyne, yours and Dad’s, not mine. It’s your pride and joy, your El Dorado. It’s the treasure you’ve been enjoying without me for years! You’ve kept me on the sidelines too long, Jules. … Frankly, I don’t give a damn about that right now. This time, for once in your life, you’re the one who’s going to have to back off, or I’m going to make it extremely difficult for you.”
Alexandre’s voice was tired but filled with determination. Unexpectedly, he grazed his brother’s shoulder with his hand before stepping out of the room. Jules watched him go, without a word. Five minutes passed before he decided to move. He went up to his bedroom, where Laurène was waiting. She was still dressed, and she gave him an engaging and enigmatic smile. He sat next to her, trying to make sense of what had just happened downstairs. She didn’t realize to what extent he was distraught and, set on trying to seduce him, she began to slowly take off her blouse. She remained topless for a few moments, feeling awkward and embarrassed. He was watching her, bewildered, thinking how bizarre and awful a turn the evening had taken.
“What does she have that I don’t?” Laurène asked. “She’s a better lover? What do I have to do for you to forget about her?”
It took Jules a little while to realize that she was talking about Frédérique.
“I wasn’t thinking about her,” he said.
But, unfazed, she continued, “I have to shock you? Come up with something different every night?”
As she reached out for him, he snatched her wrist.
“Stop it, Laurène.”
“I don’t know what to do, Jules. It’s always a struggle with you. …”
He was in no mood for another scene. He got up, took her by the waist, lifted her, and dropped her on the bed.
“I hate what you’re doing,” he said between clenched teeth. “I cheated on you, I lied to you, it’s true. Yell at me if you want to, leave me if you need to, but do not behave like that.”
He quickly got undressed, and she tried to take refuge under the blankets. But she didn’t have time, as Jules grabbed the entire bedding and tossed it to the floor.
A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel Page 32
