Past Perfect

by Danielle Steel

  “If you didn’t bring anything, don’t worry,” he told her. “Just wear whatever you have.” Sybil agreed, as they set Quinne’s bags down in Andy’s room, and she noticed the sparkling blue nail polish that matched Quinne’s hair. It was a complete look.

  “Actually, I did bring some dresses for dinner,” Quinne said quietly. “My grandparents are quite formal too, when we stay with them. And they’re alive, which is worse.” They all laughed. Sybil realized, as she left them to settle in, that she had now become officially eccentric herself. She was living with dead people who seemed to be alive, in a mansion, in a time warp. There was no way she could ever feel normal again, or explain it to anyone sane, although Quinne said she thought it was fine. Maybe one had to have electric blue hair to feel that way.

  Andy and Quinne went out shortly after to have lunch, he wanted to show her around the city. He borrowed his mother’s car and gave Sybil a big hug, happy to be home with his parents and to have Quinne with him. He was in love with her, which was easy to see. She was a sweet girl, and seemed like a bright one, and despite the punk-rock style she exhibited, she was obviously very well brought up. Sybil could hardly wait for Augusta and Angus to see her, if they chose to appear, and hear what they’d say about her. It would do them good to be mildly provoked, the thought of it amused Sybil.

  They had that opportunity at dinner, when Quinne appeared in a tight black evening gown that showed off her figure, startlingly high black suede platform shoes, her tattoos in full evidence, and the electric blue hair brushed straight up and gelled, a bit like the bride of Frankenstein, but blue and much prettier. And Andy was wearing black tie. Sybil was wearing a dark green velvet evening gown. Blake had come home from the office on time, met their guest, and changed into his dinner jacket, and Caroline was due back from Los Angeles the next day, for the Christmas break. Quinne and Caro had already met on Skype and followed each other on Instagram to share photos.

  Quinne walked into the dining room blended among them, and Augusta’s eyebrows nearly shot into her hairline when she saw her. There were no words to describe the look on her face, and Gwyneth and Sybil had to turn away so Augusta didn’t see them laugh.

  “Oh, my dear,” Gwyneth whispered to her, nearly choking.

  “I warned both of them,” Sybil whispered back, “but she’s actually very nice, very polite, and seems very bright.” When Sybil turned around, Augusta was interrogating their guest by then. She noticed her accent instantly, and knew she was Scottish. “And where are you from?”

  Quinne told her, and Augusta narrowed her eyes. “What is your father’s name?” She supplied it and the dowager stared at her intently, as though to discover if she was an imposter. “Castle Creagh?” Augusta asked pointedly, and Quinne nodded with a smile. She wasn’t afraid of Augusta and thought her remarkably like her own grandmother, which amused her. It was a breed she understood and knew well, whatever the century, ghosts or not.

  “Ian MacDonald and my late husband went to school together,” Augusta said, smiling benignly at their visitor.

  “He’s my great-grandfather,” Quinne said, smiling back and Augusta looked shocked for an instant, not remembering that in Quinne’s world, he’d been dead for sixty years.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, and didn’t comment on the hair, the tattoos, the shoes, or any part of her outfit. She looked delighted to see her.

  “I’m visiting Andy,” she said demurely with a smile, and Augusta told Angus who she was. He looked pleased too, although he didn’t seem to remember who her great-grandfather was, but Augusta reminded him that her father was the current Earl of Creagh, and they lived at Castle Creagh.

  “Your family hasn’t sold it, have they?” she asked, looking concerned.

  “No, ma’am, they haven’t.” Quinne addressed her formally in a thick Scottish burr that made Andy smile. She put it on when she wanted to, and knew that it would be a winning card with Augusta. After that, she sat down at the table next to Bettina and they chatted. Andy had told her that Bettina was leaving for Paris soon, and Quinne said she loved Paris and had studied at the Sorbonne for six months. “Though my accent is awful, pure Scot,” she confessed, and Bettina laughed. She’d been brushing up on hers ever since she’d decided to go. And she wanted to hire a French governess when she got there, in addition to her American nurse, so Lili would learn to speak French.

  Considering Quinne’s exotic appearance, the dinner went remarkably well. The fact that she was Scottish, and the daughter of the Earl of Creagh, had won Augusta over immediately. He was as eccentric as his daughter. Quinne had told Andy that her father had attempted to be a rock star at one time, but Augusta wasn’t aware of that obviously, although she did say later, when Andy and Quinne left the table to go out so he could continue showing her the town, that the Creaghs had always been a little odd. But she thought Quinne was a pretty girl with good manners from a good family.

  Sybil added that Quinne wanted to go to medical school, and Augusta looked shocked. “Why would she want to do that? How unsuitable for the daughter of a peer,” she said grandly. “You’ll have to talk her out of that.” The electric blue hair didn’t bother her, but the possibility of her becoming a doctor did. They lived in a mad world, Sybil thought to herself, and she and Gwyneth exchanged a look.

  The next day Caroline came home from school. She didn’t bring Max with her, but he was coming up after Christmas to spend New Year’s Eve with her. He had gone to Mexico first, to meet his parents for Christmas.

  Everyone had a good time at dinner, and they all played charades afterward, after Quinne and Andy went out. Josiah was exceptionally good at it. Andy and Quinne came back early to join the young people again. Josiah told Andy how much he liked her. Lucy did too, although she was a little jealous of her, but Andy was always attentive to Lucy and treated her like a sister. It was the same way Josiah felt about Caro now. And they all recognized that they needed to spend time with their contemporaries too. They couldn’t exist solely in the Butterfields’ rarefied world, in a dimension accessible only to the two families. The Gregorys needed more than that, although the Butterfields and the mansion were home base.

  “As soon as my grandmother knew you were a countess, she didn’t even notice the color of your hair,” Josiah teased Quinne when they sat in the drawing room playing cards.

  “My mother is still alive, so I’m not a countess yet,” Quinne corrected him. “And her hair is shocking pink. It was purple for a few years. She just changed it. My father’s is blue too. It’s genetic.” She grinned at him.

  “You’re a Scot. That trumps all,” Josiah added. “That means you’re perfect.”

  “Of course,” Quinne agreed. She fit right in, and Andy had been right, she was perfectly at home in a family of Victorian ghosts. Sybil couldn’t imagine another girl who would be. They had lucked out. And Andy was happy with her, and was talking about staying in Scotland while she went to medical school, but that was still a few years away, and Sybil didn’t want to think about it.

  It was late by the time all the young people went upstairs, and Quinne and Andy went back out for a nightcap at a bar in the Mission that stayed open late, and they slept in the next day. When Quinne emerged from Andy’s bedroom, Alicia got a fright when she saw her hair, but Quinne was very polite, and she whisked down the stairs in denim shorts with a leopard sweater and camouflage combat boots.

  “Madre de Dios,” Alicia said, shaking her head. And when she went to vacuum the third floor, she could hear Sybil talking to herself again in her office. Gwyneth had come by for a few minutes, to gossip about Quinne, and both women agreed that they liked her. Other than the hair, she seemed perfect, and Andy was crazy about her. The only thing Sybil didn’t like about her was that she was afraid Andy would stay in Scotland to be with her.

  “Can’t he convince her to come here?” Gwyneth asked her.

  “I don’t know. I think he likes it there. I’m going to blame Angus if he
stays.”

  “You just have to convince her to move to the States, if he marries her,” Gwyneth said.

  “He’s a long way from that. But you never know.” There was always something to worry about with kids. Gwyneth was equally worried about Bettina staying in France.

  “I don’t think she will,” Sybil reassured her. “She’d miss all of you too much.”

  “She’s bored here,” Gwyneth said realistically, “and if she meets a man there…” Gwyneth’s voice drifted off, and Sybil tried to forget what she already knew, that Bettina did meet a man there, and married him. But she and Blake had agreed that they had no right to tell them the future. It had to unfold, and if destiny changed it, that was different, but they couldn’t influence what would happen. They didn’t have that power anyway. And why upset Gwyneth?

  —

  Quinne had brought small, thoughtful gifts for everyone, and they all spent a beautiful Christmas Eve together. Christmas Day was sunny and warmer than usual. They sat in the garden together and talked, and had dinner again that night, informally. All the men wore black tie. Andy took Quinne away for a few days after that, to the Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe to show her the sights, and have some time alone together. They shared a lovely few days in beautiful places. Sybil liked Quinne more and more. She got along with everyone, and Augusta was enchanted by her. Angus was not entirely sure who she was, but commented that she had great legs and a very handsome bosom, which made everyone laugh except his sister, who scolded him soundly when they left the table, and told him he sounded like a masher.

  —

  Their New Year’s Eve together was exceptionally nice too. It wasn’t as dramatic as the year before, when Josiah had returned from the war. Max Walker arrived to spend the evening with Caroline, and Sybil had warned Gwyneth. Neither of them was sure how Augusta would react to all these strangers coming and going. But they were young and guests of the Gregorys, so Augusta came to dinner and ignored Max completely. He wasn’t Scottish and his father didn’t have a title, so he was unworthy of her notice. But the other Butterfields were there too and welcomed him warmly. Caroline had explained to him that they were ghosts, which he found hard to believe at first. But once he met them, he loved them. They celebrated Lili’s first birthday two days later. Bettina had decided to leave for France a month later, in February, and had booked passage on the White Star Line’s Baltic.

  At dinner after Lili’s birthday party, Gwyneth noticed that Augusta was coughing and looked feverish.

  “Are you all right, Mother?” she asked, as she observed her through dinner. She didn’t look well, and Sybil agreed.

  By the time they left the dining room after dinner, Augusta seemed unsteady on her feet. Sybil remembered then from Bettina’s book what it was, and suggested to Gwyneth that they call a doctor immediately. She nodded, and asked Bert to do it. The doctor came an hour later. He was the same doctor she’d had for fifty years, and he looked serious when he came downstairs. They were all waiting for him in the drawing room, which they seldom used.

  “Is she all right?” Bert asked. He and Blake had been drinking some very fine brandy they’d found in his wine cellar.

  “I believe it’s the Spanish flu,” he said ominously, “but hopefully a very mild case.” The Spanish flu had been ravaging the United States and Europe for several months. Some survived it, but many didn’t, and the death toll was beginning to compete with the war dead, and people feared it would exceed it. It was an epidemic of epic proportions, and none of them wanted Augusta to become one of its victims or fatalities. She was not a young woman.

  The doctor recommended bed rest, keeping Augusta warm, and what medicines they had to combat it. But so far, little was known about the disease. Death could occur very quickly, even in healthy young people, and particularly among the elderly or infants, so Augusta was at serious risk.

  Gwyneth volunteered immediately to nurse her, as did Bettina. They forbade Lucy to go near her, and Sybil volunteered her services too. There was no danger for her, and all three women were adamant about wanting to care for her. They wouldn’t allow Angus to enter his sister’s room, and when Quinne and Caroline offered to help too, the older women declined. But Sybil knew there was no chance of their catching any illness from a ghost.

  Moments later, they began the first shift to nurse her. Gwyneth went first, and her mother got steadily worse through the night. She stayed with her until noon, and then left her in Bettina’s care. There was no change when Sybil took over at midnight. She stayed on duty until the next day. The doctor came and went and brought a nurse with him, but there was nothing they could do. They just had to wait it out, as the flu tore through Augusta like a tidal wave, weakening her as the fever raged, and she began to cough blood.

  Augusta was barely conscious on the third day when Gwyneth came to nurse her again and relieved Sybil. Bert came to check on them, and Gwyneth sent him away. She didn’t want him to get sick too. Bettina kept her mother company that afternoon, before she relieved her, but Gwyneth didn’t want to leave her mother’s side. They were each sitting on one side of her, when Augusta sighed deeply, looked from one to the other and smiled, thanked them for nursing her, and then closed her eyes and exhaled her last breath. It was quiet and peaceful. She didn’t struggle, but it was all over. Her body had succumbed to the dreaded Spanish flu. Gwyneth and Bettina sat looking at her in shock, with tears rolling down their cheeks, as Augusta lay on the bed, an empty shell with a spirit that had flown.

  Sybil and Blake were deeply saddened when Bert told them and their children. The entire house went into mourning, and Phillips put a black wreath on the door. They had had too many of them in recent years, and Alicia saw it when she came to work the next day and wondered what it was for. She’d seen them there before, and they always looked creepy to her. She wondered at times if the Gregorys were into witchcraft. But at least none of them were talking to themselves that day, as she perceived it. The Butterfields were in seclusion. Gwyneth was organizing her mother’s funeral, and Bettina was helping with the details.

  Bert told Angus the day after it happened, as gently as he could, but he didn’t seem to understand what Bert told him, and rambled for a long time about people Bert didn’t know. He didn’t appear to comprehend that his younger sister had died, or what Bert had said. He took to his bed that afternoon, and refused to get up the next day. He said he was tired, but his mind was clearly rejecting the information he’d been given. It was too much for him to bear. He played his bagpipes in the middle of the night, and Bert had to ask him to stop.

  He wouldn’t get up to dress the day of the funeral, and after discussing it, Gwyneth and Bert agreed to let him stay home. His consciousness was refusing what had happened. He didn’t have the Spanish flu, but he was clearly not well himself, in body or mind. It was as though someone had pulled the plug, and he was simply fading away on his own.

  The funeral Gwyneth organized was solemn and beautiful and respectful, but the Gregorys couldn’t go with them. They couldn’t travel back in time to events outside the house, so they waited quietly for them at home. Quinne said she was happy to have met her, even for a brief time. They all sat in the drawing room afterward, had a light dinner together, and went to bed. And in the morning, Angus had died in his sleep, and joined his sister. Sybil wondered how long it would take them to return, since she knew they would, and that Augusta’s spirit was strong. But no one could say, and Sybil didn’t want to ask.

  Andy and Quinne left for Edinburgh the next day, to go back to school, and Caroline flew to Los Angeles that night. Max had gone back just before Augusta got sick. It was a sad time for all of them, but they knew she had led a good life. Sybil went through the box of photographs the bank had given her. She found pictures of Lili as a little girl in France, and Bettina with her, and a man Sybil didn’t recognize. They were all there with dates on the back, and there was a beautiful one of Augusta in her youth, which she set aside to frame and put on her
desk. When Gwyneth saw it there a few days later, she asked how Sybil had gotten it, and she said she’d found it in a drawer, not wanting to tell her about the box of photos from the bank, or Bettina’s book. Gwyneth nodded. It was how her mother had looked when Gwyneth was a young girl.

  The house was in deep mourning for several weeks, and Bettina thought about postponing her trip to Paris, but Gwyneth told her she should go. There was nothing more she could do at home. Only time would gentle the loss, but the house was too quiet without the indomitable matriarch who had terrorized them all.

  Bettina went back to her packing, and Sybil and Gwyneth both knew how lonely it would be when Bettina and Lili left. The only young people in the house would be Lucy, who rarely emerged from her room except on particularly good days, and Magnus and Charlie. The others had all flown the nest or would soon. Gwyneth dreaded that moment, and so did Sybil for her.

  Chapter 13

  On the tenth of February, Gwyneth and Bert took Bettina, Lili, and the nurse to the train station, and watched the steamer trunks loaded into the first-class freight car, and helped her settle into the two first-class compartments they would occupy on the trip to New York. Bettina had their passports, their tickets, a letter of credit for a bank in Paris that her father had given her, foreign currency, and more than she needed in U.S. cash. She had enough clothes with her to stay away for ten years, and she was wearing an elegant midnight blue wool traveling suit with a mink coat over it, from her mother, and a very elegant black hat and long black gloves. She looked like a stylish young matron leaving on a trip, and she would board the RMS Baltic in New York for the trip to Liverpool, then Cherbourg, and from there by train to Paris, to stay with her parents’ friends the Margaux. Gwyneth couldn’t hold back the tears when she said goodbye to her daughter.