Thurston House

by Danielle Steel

  “I’m happy for you and Papa. You will be wonderful for him.”

  “I’m the lucky one to have both of you.” She wished that Jonathan had been as kind. She had called to tell him in his dorm, and there had been a long silence on the phone followed by a few chill words.

  “What’s the rush?” He would know soon enough.

  “We just thought … Darling, I’m sorry you can’t be here.…” She was agonized, forgetting the pain he had caused her with Camille.

  “I’m not. Why in hell would you want to marry a farmer like him?”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say, Jon.” She was hurt by his words, but he had planned it that way.

  “Anyway, good luck.”

  “Thank you. Do you want to come home for Easter, sweetheart?” She would have sent him the fare.

  “No, thanks, I’m going to New York with friends. But you can send me to Paris if you want, in June.”

  “That’s not quite the same thing, is it? I just thought that you might like to come home and see all of us.”

  “I’d rather see France. A whole group of us are going on the Grand Tour when we graduate. What do you say?” He had dismissed her marriage to André and was already thinking of himself again.

  “We’ll discuss it some other time.”

  “Why not now? I have to make arrangements if I’m going with them.”

  “I don’t want to be pressed. We’ll discuss it later, Jon.”

  “For chrissake …”

  “You have to go to work when you graduate. What about that?” If he was going to push her, she was going to push him. Turnabout was fair play, although she seldom applied it to him. But she was mad about his comment about André … a farmer from France indeed … the little shit.

  “I’m pretty sure Johnson’s father is going to give me a job in New York.” She felt her heart sink but she had expected it. “Five of us are going to rent a town house.”

  “Sounds expensive. Will be you able to afford that?”

  “Why not? You have Thurston House.”

  “I don’t pay rent.” Although if Camille and he had had their way, perhaps she would have by then. “How’s your charming grandmother, by the way?”

  “She’s fine. I got a letter from her last week.” Sabrina didn’t say anything, she just sighed. It annoyed her that she stayed in touch with Jon, and he seemed to have such an affinity for her.

  “Well, we’ll see you at graduation then,” and she hoped Camille wouldn’t be there. She never wanted to see her again, but her great-nephew would be graduating too and perhaps she would come. Sabrina didn’t ask Jon, and he asked her about the trip again. “I’ll think about it and let you know.” But he figured she would ask André and he might say no.

  “Make up your mind soon.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I’ll find some other way to go.”

  “Maybe you should.” Her voice was very calm. She recognized all the mistakes she had made with him now, and she wouldn’t make them again with her next child. It warmed her heart to think of that … she had a baby on the way … another child … she wondered what it would be … who it would look like … she smiled to herself.

  “God damn it, Mom. I need that trip.”

  “That you do not. You want it, there’s a difference.” And with that, he hung up on her, without congratulating her again, or sending his regards to André. And she didn’t hear from him again for another month. He called to press her again about the trip, and this time she did discuss it with André, and he expressed his views to her, although he knew they wouldn’t be popular with Jon.

  “Do you really want to know what I think?” He had restrained himself until then. He felt that how she dealt with her son was her own affair, and he didn’t want to tread on delicate ground.

  “Yes, I do. He’s making me feel as though I owe it to him, but I’m not sure it would be good for him just to give him the trip. On the other hand, he’s graduating from Harvard in June, it would be a beautiful gift.…” She looked helplessly at André.

  “Too beautiful a gift, I think. I think if that’s what he wanted, he should have begun saving for it a long time ago. He never thinks about how difficult it is for you. He thinks he has a right to it. That’s a dangerous way for a man to think, and sooner or later reality is going to hit him hard. You won’t always be there to put money into his open hand. Once he leaves school, he should stand on his own two feet.”

  “I agree.” She was slowly hardening herself to Jon’s constant demands. He was the ultimate spoiled child and it had gone too far. “And the trip?”

  “I would tell him no.”

  She sighed. “That’s what I think, but I dread telling him.” André nodded sympathetically. He knew what a hard time Jon gave her and he felt sorry for her. He was a rude, selfish little son of a bitch, and he didn’t think it was just because he had been spoiled. There was something more to it than that. He was too much like his grandmother for his own good, and André felt that he must have been born like that.

  He was certainly different from Antoine, who was nothing but nice to her. He was almost twenty-six years old, and very much involved with a girl in town, and each time he looked at Sabrina now, he thought that his suspicions had been correct, but neither of them had said anything to him, and he didn’t want to ask, until finally one day in May, he looked at Sabrina and smiled.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” She smiled at him, she loved him as her own son, and in many ways he was easier to love than Jon. The explosion over the trip had caused an enormous rift, and she hadn’t spoken to him in a month, although they still planned to go to Cambridge in June to see him graduate.

  “I know it’s rude to ask …” He blushed beneath his deep tan, and she noticed once again how handsome he was. He was a magnificent-looking young man, and she wondered how serious he was about his current girl and if that was what he wanted to talk to her about now, but he took her by surprise instead. “Are you … am I going to have a little brother or sister?…” He couldn’t stand the suspense anymore and she smiled at him, blushing herself now. She nodded and he swept her up in his powerful arms, kissed her cheek and put her down again. “When?”

  She began to tell him what she and André had agreed to tell everyone, and then thought better of it. She could tell Antoine the truth. In a way, he had been the first to know, when she had almost fainted in the fields. And he was no fool, he would figure it out eventually. They just didn’t want other people to know. “October,” she smiled at him, “but officially, it’s two months later than that.”

  He grinned, and appreciated her honesty. “I thought that too, but I didn’t want to ask.” And in his heart, he knew that his father would have married her anyway. “Does Jon know?”

  “Not yet. We’ll tell him next month when we go east.”

  “Papa is thrilled, I can tell. He’s been strutting around here like a boy since you came back from San Francisco, a few days before you two got married.” He didn’t ask her what had happened then, but he knew it had changed everything, and all to the good. It was as though they each knew how much the other meant to them after that. And he envied them that. He would have liked to have found a girl he loved as much as his father loved her, but so far he knew he had not. The girl he was seeing now was fun, and he cared about her, but he already knew it wouldn’t last. She wasn’t bright enough, and she never laughed at the same things, and that was important to him. He looked at Sabrina now. “I’m happy for both of you.” And then with an extra smile, “I hope it’s a girl.”

  She whispered to him as they walked hand in hand to the house, “So do I.” It was just beginning to show in the trousers she wore around the farmhouse. Their other house was supposed to be finished in two months. She wanted to move in in time for the baby to come, but she was going to go to San Francisco for the birth. André was insistent about that. He wanted her to have the best care she could hav
e, but so far she had had no problems with the pregnancy. Even the train trip to the East didn’t bother her, and when they saw Jon the atmosphere between them was tense. He ignored André, and looked at his mother with hostility.

  “I suppose you’re pleased at the news.”

  “What news?” She looked blank.

  “I wrote to you last week.”

  “I didn’t get anything. The letter must have arrived after we left.”

  There were tears in his eyes as he spoke to her, and she was stunned. “Grandmother was hit by a bus last week and killed instantly.” It took her a moment to register the fact that he meant Camille and then she stared at him, amazed at the grief he seemed to feel. She felt nothing at all, except in some remote way relief.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Jon.”

  “No, you’re not. You hated her.” He sounded like a child again, as André watched from where he sat on the windowsill in Jon’s room in his dorm. Sabrina was sitting on the bed, and she was obviously flourishing. She had gained weight, and she couldn’t wear her old clothes anymore. She had had to buy some loose dresses like the blue silk dress she wore now. It was the same color as her eyes and André thought she looked even prettier than she had before.

  “I didn’t hate her, Jon. I barely knew her. And what I knew I didn’t like very much. You’ll have to admit she wasn’t exactly decent to me. She tried to put me out of my house, after abandoning me as a child, and staying out of my life for forty-six years.”

  He shrugged, it was a difficult accusation to deny. And then he seemed to look Sabrina over with surprise. “You’ve sure gotten fat. Marriage must agree with you.” It was hardly a tactful remark and she laughed.

  “It does, but that isn’t why I’ve gained weight.” She had to tell him sometime and it was as good a time as any, or so she thought. “I know you’ll be surprised. And to be honest with you, so were we.” She took a breath and went on, “we’re having a baby at Christmastime, Jon.”

  “You’re what?” He looked at them both and jumped to his feet. “You’re not!” He looked horrified.

  “I am.” She sat calmly where she was and looked at André and then her son again. “I know it’s a bit of a shock initially, but—”

  “How can you make such fools of yourselves? Christ … of me? My God, everyone I know will laugh me out of town! You’re fifty years old, and God only knows how old he is …” He was less than gracious to them both, and Sabrina couldn’t help smiling. He was so enraged that he looked like a little boy again, and it was certainly different from the reaction they had had from Antoine, who had rushed out and bought the baby its first teddy bear, “and remember to tell her it’s from me!” He insisted that it was going to be a girl, but Jon didn’t care what it was as he stormed around the room.

  “These things do happen you know, old boy.” André tried to calm him down. He was sorry to see the boy behave that way to his mother, but it didn’t surprise him at all. He was totally immature and completely spoiled, and he always seemed to have an ax to grind against her. “You’ll get used to it eventually. We did. And so did Antoine. And he’s even older than you are. Four years older in fact.”

  “What the hell does he know? All he does is plant grapes. I’m a man for God’s sake!” André got to his feet, controlling himself with difficulty.

  “So is my son. And he is your stepbrother now, I will thank you to speak of him with respect, Jonathan.” For an instant the two men exchanged a long look and then Jon backed down. He was no fool, and André meant every word he said. He looked at Sabrina then, and indicated that it was time to leave. Jon had plans for that night, but they would see him at graduation the next day, and then they would dine with him and a friend, and the next day André and Sabrina were leaving for New York with him. He was sailing on the Normandie three days after that. He had come up with the money for the trip himself after all, quite a lot of it in fact, and Sabrina was impressed. And she and André wanted to see Amelia anyway.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow, Jon.” She went to kiss his cheek but he avoided her and his back was turned when they left the room.

  “I’m sorry he took it so hard,” she said to André as they took a cab back to their hotel.

  “Did you really expect otherwise? He’s still very young,” he patted her hand, “four years makes a big difference at this age. Antoine is already a man. Jon isn’t quite yet. It’ll come. And it’s probably a threat to him, in terms of what he’ll inherit from you … the house … the Napa land …” She hadn’t thought of that, but she nodded now, wondering if Jon had.

  “You may be right. Strange about Camille, isn’t it?”

  André looked at her. “It’s just as well. She was an evil, greedy, useless woman, and she should have died years ago, as your father claimed she had.” He had never forgiven her for what she had done to his wife. During all those months, she had tortured Sabrina, as she stood by helplessly waiting to go to court to defend herself.

  “It’s odd. I don’t feel anything.” It was a strange thing to admit. She had just learned that her mother had died, and she didn’t care at all. “Jon certainly does.”

  “He’s known her for four years, and apparently, they had atômes crochus.” She smiled. She loved that expression of his, “hooked atoms,” something in common. And much to her chagrin, he was right, they did.

  The graduation went off without a hitch the next day, and Sabrina cried as she watched Jon participate. No matter how difficult he was, she was proud of him, and she had gotten him through school, selling the mines, the Napa house, the gardens around Thurston House … she had done it, and so had he. They had a lot to be proud of and to celebrate, and they dined out that night. Jon got more than a little drunk, but Sabrina and André understood and he was actually nicer than he usually was, far nicer than he was on the train to New York. He was embarrassed to be seen with her.

  “My God, what will people think?” he whispered to her and she smiled, and whispered back.

  “Just tell them I eat a lot.” They asked him about his job. He was going to work in September, when he came back, and he would be working for the father of a friend. The boy’s name was William Blake, and when they saw Jon off on the ship, he introduced Sabrina to Bill, who had a radiantly pretty young girl with him. She never took her eyes off Jon, and Sabrina learned that she was only eighteen, Bill’s sister, and it was obvious that she had a ferocious crush on Jon. She introduced herself to them as soon as she discovered who they were.

  “Hello, my name is Arden Blake.” She shook hands with Sabrina, and then André, glanced only casually at the loose red dress Sabrina wore, and then went on to tell them how wonderful Jon was, although he seemed totally indifferent to her. “And Daddy thinks he’s going to do just fabulously. That’s why he’s sending him to Europe with Bill, as a sort of bonus before he even starts.…” Sabrina was furious hearing about it, but nothing showed in her face. Jon had told her that he got up the money himself, not that he was traveling for three months as someone else’s guest, and first-class on the Normandie, not to mention the hotels they would be staying at. She knew who William Blake, Sr., was, everyone in the country did. He was the biggest banker in New York, and she had had some dealings with him before she’d sold John’s mine, with some investments John had had. She looked at her son now and wanted to throttle him, but it was too late to discuss it with him before they sailed. Instead she went on talking to Arden innocuously, remembering with amazement that she had run her father’s mines at the same age. It was incredible to think of that, particularly with this sweet, innocent girl, who was so totally gaga over Jon. “Mummy and Daddy and I are going over next month and we’re going to meet them in the south of France.” She practically fainted at the thought and Sabrina smiled.

  “Just be sure he behaves himself,” she warned the pretty little green-eyed blonde. “I don’t always trust my son.”

  “Mummy says he’s the nicest boy she knows. He’s going to be my escort
at my coming-out party in December.” She absolutely glowed, and when the boat horn sounded for them to get off, Sabrina saw Jon kiss her on the lips and then three other girls after her. There were four of them sailing on the ship, all classmates from Harvard, and Sabrina hated to think of the mischief they would get into. But she hated more to think that someone else was paying for the trip. He had very effectively forced her hand. She was going to have to send a handsome check to William Blake, Sr., to cover the expense of the trip. She could not allow Jon to go as someone else’s guest, and God only knew what sob story he had told them.

  “I want to discuss that with you when you come back.” She looked meaningfully at him and handed him an envelope that she had meant to be a graduation gift. She had been so proud of his paying for his own trip, she was giving him a thousand dollars to spend, but now, it was just an additional expense and she wasn’t pleased. “Be nice to Arden Blake,” she whispered to him, “she’s a sweet girl.” And she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was going to take advantage of her.

  “She’s my ticket to success,” he winked and whispered back, and Sabrina almost felt sick. Later, Sabrina saw her waving frantically from the dock as her own mother watched. Sabrina almost wanted to warn her of what her son was like, but how could she do a thing like that? He stood on the deck outside his suite, smiling down at them all, looking more handsome than she had ever realized he was. He was a tall, thin, terribly handsome fiery-eyed young man with jet black hair, and blue eyes like Camille’s, and a face for which any woman would have died. It was almost painful to look at him. And Sabrina turned to André with a sigh as they left, and told him what Jon had said about Arden Blake. She also told him about how he had financed the trip.