J.J. walked around the room, stopping a couple of times to examine something only he could see.
“If I had to guess,” Phoebe said. “I’d say one of the rooms is a bedroom or a place for napping and one is sitting room. Another might be a kitchen and the last one, maybe a restroom?”
They went into a room that had a narrow staircase in one corner, going down into an indistinct gloom. J.J. noticed it immediately and turned his head toward it. “What’s that?”
“It’s a very rickety looking staircase going down into the bare dirt underneath the building, to maybe a basement or a cellar, but it’s dark down there. I can’t see anything. The railing looks pretty precarious.”
“There’s a tunnel from here to the big house nearby, the Petit Trianon,” he said. “Probably for bringing food across. To keep it warm during the trip. And this room we’re in, what you’re calling a kitchen, is a warming room. This was very important to the French and then the Russians who copied French manners. Food that was still warm when it hit the table was a demonstration of vast wealth.”
This was a new concept for Phoebe. “Kings used to eat their meals cold?”
“Yes. During dinners at Versailles it was common to have to break the coating of ice in your water glass before being able to take a drink.”
Cold meals were no big deal but being cold indoors was Phoebe’s idea of hell.
“Let’s try the tunnel,” said J.J.
“What if it’s caved in?”
“It’s not,” he said. “I’ll go first. I’m not afraid of the dark.” Then to prove it he started down the stairs carefully.
Phoebe didn’t want to follow him, but her nurse ethic wouldn’t let her abandon him either, so she reluctantly went down the crumbling earthen stairs. The tunnel was so narrow that the shoulders of their jackets lightly brushed the walls on either side and J.J. had to stoop to keep from hitting his head.
Phoebe struggled with panic from claustrophobia. She wished she’d brought a flashlight, but she hadn’t. She knew there must be some light behind them, from where they’d entered. But there was no light at all ahead of them. The darkness seemed to go on forever, even though she’d seen exactly how far apart the buildings were when she was standing between them above ground.
J.J. stopped suddenly and Phoebe slammed into his back. “Sorry,” she mumbled into the back of his coat.
“The exit from this end of the tunnel is blocked with a door of some kind.”
Phoebe literally prayed, begged, that he could get it open quickly and they wouldn’t have to go back with her in the lead. Panic rose in her at the darkness and confinement. All her senses could tell her was there was an overwhelming smell of dirt. In essence, they were in a long thin grave, and no one knew they were down there.
“Give me that key,” he said, and she handed it to him, careful not to drop it in the dark. She felt and heard him dealing with whatever was between them and light and air and open space. Just when she thought she might scream, she heard a click and he said, “Back up a couple of steps.”
She took a firm hold of his jacket, afraid to lose touch with him in the blackness of the tomb, and then backed up as he’d asked. He pulled the door toward them and light and fresh air immediately spilled through the opening. Phoebe took a huge breath and had to restrain herself from lunging at the opening.
They went up a short staircase and into what was obviously a kitchen. Phoebe looked around and confirmed that they were now inside the house J.J. had called the Petit Trianon. When they went up another staircase, she could see the pavilion out the window. She shuffled along behind J.J., still reluctant to release his jacket.
“Did that scare you?” he asked, gently but forcibly detaching her hand from his coat and taking hold of it.
She nodded.
“Did you just nod?”
She did it again and then realized he couldn’t see her and managed to say in a husky whisper, “Yes.”
“Me, too.”
“Thanks for waiting ‘til we were out before telling me that.”
“It’s what we men do. It’s how we operate,” he said, smiling and squeezing her hand. “It fools people into thinking we’re brave, but it’s actually just a tendency to delay any admissions of terror, or error.”
She wondered how much terror his blindness had caused him in the early days, or afterwards, but didn’t ask because she didn’t think she could handle the answer. It was totally quiet in the elegant house. The place seemed to be empty. “Can we do a walkthrough?” Phoebe said.
“I’m game if you are,” he said, “But it would be faster if you take the lead now.” He let go of Phoebe’s hand and took her arm, as he preferred to do when they were on the move.
There were only the slightest wisps of sensation in this house. Definitely no trails from CR. It was a gorgeous place, but the décor was coldly beautiful, as if it was meant to reassure the occupants that nothing of the real world could ever touch anyone who remained inside these perfect walls. Of course the superficial appearance was a lie and in the end, the real world had made its way to the King and Queen and they were beheaded.
“Can we get out of here without having to go back through that tunnel?” Phoebe asked.
“I hope so,” J.J. said. “Try the doors.”
They waited till the surrounding area was clear of tourists and sneaked out of a tall door, used the key to lock it back from the outside, and returned to the little pavilion by way of a gravel path. Phoebe relocked the door and put the key back in its hiding place.
“What now?” she asked.
It was mid-afternoon. They decided to walk the grounds for another hour or so and then go pick up their rental car.
The signal attenuated noticeably as they walked away from the pavilion. And despite their efforts, they found no further traces of the great man.
Chapter 11.
The man stood in the dark room for a long time, watching everything on the dozens of monitors that lined one wall, each displaying views from multiple closed circuit cameras. He saw the couple walked off together down a long pathway through the garden.
He had many years of experience following the movements of people as they wandered around in the vast indoor and outdoor spaces of Versailles. It didn’t surprise him when the couple he was observing suddenly balked in the middle of the trail. The woman was looking off into the woods, probably at a bird.
But then something unexpected happened. They actually went into the woods, moving off-trail at a pace that was faster than a normal walk. That was atypical.
He smiled. Finally things were getting interesting. When one of the security men would’ve called a guard to intercept them, he held out a hand and told them to wait. He wanted to see what they were up to.
The woman seemed to be heading through the woods on a direct line toward Le Pavilion Français. The couple went to the small building and stopped. He saw the man speak and then watched the woman retrieve the key. When the two went inside, he shifted his gaze toward another monitor and followed their movements around the interior and observed their entry into the old tunnel.
They were off the monitor while they were in the tunnel, but when they came out at the other end into the Petit Trianon, he could see them again. They hadn’t been in the tunnel for very long and they didn’t seem to have anything with them, but they were both wearing coats, so he couldn’t be sure.
He picked up a phone.
* * *
Phoebe was starving by the time they headed back toward the château, looking for an exit from the palace grounds and a way into the village of Versailles. It was the depths of winter and the days were the shortest of the year. The sun was already setting as they approached the château. For a few minutes it set the palace afire with a dazzling display of orange light that was almost too bright to look at directly.
“The Hall of Mirrors,” Phoebe realized, and said aloud.
“What is it?” J.J. asked.
“I g
uess it’s stupid, but I never realized this would happen in the evening. The sun is reflecting in all those mirrors and it’s giving off a tremendous show of light. It looks like the palace is ablaze. We were just in there a few hours ago. I wonder what it’s like to be in there now? Is it like an inferno? Would our clothes burst into flame?”
“Galerie de Glaces,” J.J. said. “Perhaps The Sun King, Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil wished to share his bounty with his Creator by reflecting the sun back to Him.”
“I’ve seen photos of this facade,” Phoebe said, “but I never realized this would happen. You have to be here at the right time of day obviously, and maybe even the right season to get to see it. I’m so glad we’re here right now.”
J.J. stood with her as she described what she was seeing, so he could enjoy it, too. It was one of those rare moments in life when it seemed that everyone in the world, at least all the strangers walking in the vast grounds, stopped whatever they were doing and looked the same way, and stood transfixed, awed, made small at the fortuitous intersection of the best works of nature and of man. “The Sun King indeed,” Phoebe whispered. “Showing off.”
“Do you know the phrase aesthetic arrest?” said J.J. “It was used by James Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and later by Joseph Campbell. It’s a phenomenon that highlights the difference between meditation where we must make a conscious effort to blank our minds, and the unsought peace that occurs spontaneously when we are in the presence of a beauty so profound our mind goes still of its own accord, without any struggle.”
Phoebe marveled at the fact that there was a sunrise and sunset to enjoy for free every day, but a guy with a few billion dollars to blow had created his own private Heaven on Earth, at least for a few minutes every evening. Or maybe it was a glimpse of Hell.
* * *
It was getting dark as they strolled out a north gate that opened into the village of Versailles. They walked past a beautiful hotel, the Trianon Palace, owned by the Waldorf Astoria, and made their way to the ÉuroCar office where they picked up their rental car. Phoebe had been looking forward to driving a French car, something cute like a Peugeot, or Renault, or Citroen, but they were given a South Korean Kia Rio instead. The Kings Louis were no doubt spinning in their graves.
It took less than an hour to drive the thirty miles to Esclimont for their dinner and room for the night. Phoebe knew they were getting close when the road sign, Route de Château, gave it away. They were in the village of Saint-Symphorien-le-Château.
Then she saw the hotel, a French storybook castle with pointed towers, lit up by strategically placed spotlights. There was a moat, of course. And she got to drive across it to the car park.
As they were checking in, Phoebe heard the young bellman, who looked to be a teenager, speak in several different languages as he helped guests with their luggage, answered questions, gave directions, and held the door.
When he came to take their luggage, Phoebe asked, “How many languages do you speak?”
He answered her in lightly accented English. “Seven fluently, but there are others I can understand, more or less.”
“Wow.”
“Languages are necessary for a career in the best hotels. I am having an internship here at Château d’Esclimont for this year, then I return to school in Switzerland to finish my degree.”
“That’s so impressive,” Phoebe gushed. She knew she was behaving like a hick, but this was all so different from what she was used to. She’d need more practice before she could behave naturally in five-star hotels that had stone carvings of medieval knights on horseback over the front door.
And the carving wasn’t just decoration. It was a portrait of a guy who used to live there. A medieval selfie.
* * *
J.J.’s new friend, Mr. Brissac, had assigned them one of the coveted tower rooms. It was a charming round space with a bed, a desk, a sitting area, and an luxurious marble bathroom. There were two sets of tall French doors that opened to reveal a tiny balcony with an ornate wrought iron railing. There was a fireplace with a real fire burning in it. The room was splendid. There was a brochure describing the château on the elegant French desk.
Phoebe read parts of it to J.J.
“The keep is all that is left of the first fortified château built in the 10th century. … blah blah …. In 1543, Etienne du Ponchet, the Lord of Esclimont, canon of Chartres and Archbishop of Tours, rebuilt the château taking inspiration from the style of the great houses that his cousins were building in the Val de Loire.
“The château then passed to the Montmorency-Laval family….,” Phoebe stopped reading and said, “They must be related to the boy named Anne!”
“It was an important family,” said J.J. “That’s why Monsieur Brissac and I were amused at your James Bond comment.”
Then she resumed, skimming, “In 1981, the Château d'Esclimont was sold by the granddaughter of Edouard de La Rochefoucauld, the Comtesse Laure-Suzanne-Marie-Maingard de Mailly et de Nesle d'Orange.
“What a name. Nesle d’Orange sounds like the inventor of orange flavored chocolate.”
“I agree, but that’s not what it means,” J.J. laughed. “Orange is an area in the south of France. There’s a complicated dispute these days among at least three pretenders—current generation individuals from the Nassau, Hohenzollern, and Mailly families.
“How do you know all these people?”
“It’s no different than how you learn to recognize people at a large family reunion.”
“Oh,” Phoebe said, these people were J.J.’s family? She wanted to scream, but instead she said, “Pretenders? I’d hate to be a pretender.”
“Me, too,” he said. “But sometimes you can’t help it. Other people force it onto you. All it takes is be born into a particularly rich, powerful, famous, or contentious gene pool.”
“Are you a pretender?”
“Let’s not go there.”
“Oh,” Phoebe realized he must be one. It sounded exhausting. But she felt sure it wasn’t of his own choosing. J.J. was a pretty low-key guy.
It was a relief that the U.S. didn’t allow grants of titles of nobility, and in fact had a Constitutional provision banning them—Article I, Section 9, Clause 8. Phoebe’d looked it up after becoming embroiled in a previous escapade with a friend of the Boss’s. After her one brief brush with royalty, she could only imagine how fed up the Founding Fathers must’ve been with the monarchy. Love the clothes, hate the rest of it.
“Is it too late to have dinner?” Phoebe asked.
“Not in France,” J.J. said. “Do you mind if we have it brought up to the room?”
Phoebe agreed readily. She was relieved by the suggestion, assuming he meant they’d order sandwiches instead of having to endure a complicated French production.
J.J. asked her to dial the restaurant and give him the phone. He ordered in French, which of course required the usual prolonged, minutely-detailed discussion. How many ways could you make a club sandwich? Apparently in France there was an entire universe of possibilities. Phoebe was trying to get used to this. In White Oak the discussion was pretty much confined to whether you wanted ketchup or not, but she wasn’t in White Oak anymore.
* * *
While they waited for the food she walked J.J. around the room and described everything to him. She took him into the bathroom and explained the layout and controls for the sinks, toilet, tub, and shower. She put their suitcase on the stands against the wall. He went to an easy chair and sat down.
“Obviously Mr. Brissac thought we were a couple. I thought perhaps this was a suite, but I’m sure they will give us another room if we ask.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t,” Phoebe said. “I’m so tired I know I won’t have any trouble going to sleep. I can go to sleep anywhere, honestly. I’m one of those people who can sleep on the floor and never notice the difference.”
J.J. laughed. “Please don’t do that. I might trip over you and break my nec
k.”
“Okay, then I’ll ask for a rollaway bed,” Phoebe said.
Chapter 12.
Phoebe had been totally wrong about the sandwiches. Room service in a hotel like this was like nothing she’d ever seen before, or even heard of. What happened was that a bellman brought up a folding dining table and set it in the middle of the room and moved two armless chairs that had been positioned elsewhere in the room which were the perfect height for the table. Another bellman arrived and set the table with pale pink linens, china, flatware, and candles. He lit the candles and left.
It was extremely romantic to be sitting in the beautiful room at a candlelit table next to a roaring fireplace in a château with a handsome man. Phoebe commented on it and J.J. said, “These rooms are mostly booked by newlyweds. The château hotels are popular wedding venues nowadays and the best rooms are honeymoon suites. It’s helping many families save the old homes.”
Phoebe smiled at the difference in the term old in White Oak and in Saint-Symphorien-le-Château. In White Oak, the old houses they were trying to save were usually one-room log cabins. She tried to think of her community in French terms, White-Oak-Le-Log.
The next arrival was a waiter with the first course of what would end up being a full two-star feast, carried up one course at a time, each one cooked perfectly and at just the right temperature. Clearly the food wasn’t prepared until the waiter indicated the diners were ready for the next course.
At first Phoebe was disappointed with the small amount of food, but then she realized it was just the appetizer. In between courses, when the waiter was gone, Phoebe asked J.J. what was going on. “I thought you were ordering something simple.”
“It would insult Mr. Brissac if we came to his Michelin two-star restaurant and ordered tuna sandwiches. I made every effort to steer us away from foods that would have seemed strange or repugnant to you. I’ve noticed you seem to be a vegetarian, so I kept it to vegetables as much as possible. I’m certain we’ve still managed to horrify the chef, but he’s too professional not to enjoy the challenge of astonishing such difficult patrons as we appear to be.”
Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 03 - The School for Psychics Page 7
