“We ate on the flight,” Samuel said, still grinning about the old gentleman looking for his bagpipes. “You run a very formal home,” he commented to Sybil, referring to Phillips’s white tie and tails. There was no way to explain it to him, so she just nodded, and they headed up the stairs, and passed Alicia and José, who were in jeans and T-shirts, carrying cleaning utensils, which made Phillips’s uniform when they’d seen him seem ever more incongruous. Her guests said nothing as they looked around.
She took them to two large, beautiful guest bedrooms on the third floor, made sure they had what they needed, and said she’d be in her office down the hall, and told them which room it was.
“It’s a beautiful home,” Samuel complimented her, and Laure smiled at her shyly.
“Thank you.” She was still feeling unnerved by Angus’s unexpected appearance, as well as Phillips’s.
She left them and went to the room she used as an office and sat down to catch her breath, and as soon as she did, Gwyneth appeared, looking excited, and startled Sybil. She had simply materialized with a big smile, in a lovely dress.
“Are they here yet?”
“Yes,” Sybil whispered, so they wouldn’t hear her talking if they walked down the hall. “And Angus came down the front hall as soon as they arrived.”
Gwyneth was surprised at that. “He did? He’s not supposed to do that.”
“I know.” And Gwyneth had appeared out of nowhere too. They all seemed to be lively today.
“Did they see him?” She was whispering too, in case they could hear her.
“Yes, they did. Samuel asked if he’s my father.”
“What did you say?” Gwyneth looked amused and Sybil didn’t.
“I said no, he isn’t. He even had the dog with him, and Phillips came for him. He was looking for his bagpipes.”
“Oh, I hope he didn’t find them,” Gwyneth said fervently and Sybil laughed.
“Phillips did, worse luck.”
“Oh, dear.” And then she turned her attention to her great-grandson again. “What’s he like?” She was curious about him.
“Very handsome, young for his age. Quite distinguished actually.” And then something struck her that she hadn’t realized at first. “Actually, he looks a lot like Bert.”
“Really? How interesting!” She was pleased.
“And his daughter looks like Lucy. I just thought of it, but she does.” Gwyneth was happy about that too. Laure was healthier than Lucy, and stronger, but she had the same delicate features, big blue eyes, and blond hair. She’d been wearing jeans and a down jacket. Sybil wanted to introduce her to Caroline and Andy, but she knew they were out.
Gwyneth chatted with her for a few minutes and then left to see what Magnus was up to and have tea with Lucy and Augusta. Sybil answered some emails, and a little while later, there was a soft knock at the door. It was Samuel, and he said Laure was asleep.
“Do you mind if I explore a bit?” he asked her, and she offered to accompany him. He was carrying a camera, and seemed to be interested in every detail as they walked down the long hall. Sybil explained that there were children’s and guest rooms on that floor. It had been the nursery floor in the early years of the house, but that had been changed a long time ago, long before she and Blake bought the house. And she told him the top floor was all servants’ rooms that were no longer used, and then they walked down the grand staircase, to where she and her children slept, and they could hear Magnus and Charlie talking in his room, so she didn’t go in. She could tell they were playing videogames.
“I’ll introduce you to my youngest son later. I think he has a friend over.”
“You have a busy household.” He smiled at her.
“Only when my older children are home. The rest of the time it’s very quiet. My two oldest are in college,” as she had told him on the phone. “Charlie is nine.”
They continued down the grand staircase, and on the main floor she showed him the drawing rooms and the ballroom, and he studied the beautiful carvings, the exquisite curtains, the high ceilings, the furniture and chandeliers. He seemed vastly impressed and was silent for a moment.
“It’s much grander than I thought it would be,” he looked deeply affected, which touched her. “I thought it would be an interesting house, but I didn’t expect to be moved by it. I never knew these people. I barely knew my grandmother, and my mother and I weren’t very close. There’s no reason why the home of my great-grandparents should mean anything to me, and yet it does.” He was silent for a moment, out of respect. “You can almost feel them here, as though they never left it. You’ve preserved it beautifully, Sybil. It seems like a home and not a museum, and yet it’s so pure and so warm that I feel transported back into the time when the house was built. I am very touched by it,” he said as they walked past the dining room, where the Butterfields and the Gregorys ate dinner every night. She could see Phillips setting the table with the silverware and crystal, and wondered if Samuel could see him again since he didn’t react. As they walked back into the main living room with the enormous Aubusson carpet and antique furniture that Sybil and Blake had retrieved from storage three years before, Laure found them, looking sleepy but pretty, with her long blond hair and a white sweater and boots with her jeans. She and Sybil exchanged a smile, as her father pointed out important details to her, typical of the period when the house was built. They were looking carefully at the moldings when Sybil saw Charlie and Magnus run down the stairs and into the kitchen. And just at that moment, she heard Andy, Quinne, and Caroline walk in. They came to find Sybil, and she introduced Samuel and Laure to them, and they invited Laure to join them, and she left happily with the younger group.
“She’s a lovely girl,” Sybil complimented him and he looked pleased.
“She’s very impressed by the house. I’ve never seen her so quiet. But I am too. It’s truly the most beautiful home I’ve ever seen. And we have some very important homes and châteaux in France. But this has a soul, and it’s not so big you can’t feel at home here. You must enjoy living here. I can see why you fell in love with it.”
“We do love it,” she admitted, as they continued their tour, and everything he’d said about it was true. She could tell that he already felt a bond to it.
“I’m so glad we came,” he said, and thanked her again for having them. They walked into the library and sat down, and talked about his work, and leaving the university, and how strange it was going to be after being at the Sorbonne for so many years. Blake came home a little later, and enjoyed meeting Samuel, and the three of them sat for a long time, talking, and then Samuel went out to the garden to look around.
“How’s it going?” Blake asked her when Samuel went out a side door. “He seems nice.”
“They’re lovely people. The house has been crazy today. Angus wandered through the front hall. Phillips came after him. The boys ran down the stairs screaming, and were playing in Charlie’s room. They must think we’re nuts. And I’m not sure what to do about dinner. Should we take them out, or eat in the kitchen, or tell them to dress for dinner and then maybe no one will show up?”
“Is this some sort of a test or experiment?” her husband asked her, a little confused himself.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll want to see him, and they’ll just come in as usual. Gwyneth is dying to meet him. I don’t know about the others. Maybe that’s why Angus turned up. I’ve never seen him in the daytime before.”
“Maybe we should just do what we always do, and see what happens,” Blake said, suddenly feeling brave. “Maybe they’re up for it and so is he. And what can he do if he sees them? Call the police and say he saw a bunch of ghosts having dinner? Let’s just do it.” After opposing their visit initially, he was willing to throw caution to the wind now. The Butterfields were Samuel’s ancestors, after all, not Sybil’s and Blake’s.
“Okay,” Sybil said, feeling nervous now and less confident than Blake. She didn’t want to explain it to Sam
uel, in case the others didn’t appear. And if they did, he’d be unprepared and confused. And Blake was right in a way, it was a kind of test. Did the Butterfields want to meet him or not? Were they willing to accept the French branch? And were Lili’s child and grandchild acceptable to them? Would they consider them Butterfields at all? Or simply ignore them and refuse to be seen?
As Blake and Sybil left the library, she asked him if he had noticed Samuel’s resemblance to Bert, and Blake laughed. “It’s funny that you said that. I thought so too, but I figured you’d think it was hokey if I said it. They have strong genes.”
“And his daughter looks like Lucy,” she said as they walked into the kitchen to see the young people. They were having a snack at the kitchen table, and Charlie had joined them, but not Magnus. And Max, Caroline’s boyfriend, walked in a minute later. They were a happy, lively group. Samuel followed the noise and joined them a few minutes later.
“Would you like to join us here for dinner tonight?” Sybil asked Samuel, trying to sound casual, and he looked pleased as he accepted for him and his daughter. “I should have warned you. We dress for dinner, but you don’t have to. You can wear whatever you want.”
“I can lend Laure a dress if she needs one,” Caroline volunteered, and Laure thanked her.
“When you say ‘dress’ for dinner,” Samuel asked cautiously, “that means? Tie and jacket?”
“We follow some of the old traditions of the house, and we wear black tie,” Blake said, embarrassed at how ridiculous he knew it sounded, like a costume party. But it seemed run of the mill to them now. And they even wore white tie on some nights, but Blake didn’t say so.
“How amazing!” Samuel looked surprised. “It’s a nice idea actually, and must have been then. And now that I’ve seen the house, I can see it, but if you had told me that on the phone, I would have thought you were mad. But the house is so perfectly of the period, I actually understand it.”
Samuel walked around the ground floor again, taking pictures, and Sybil joined him and pointed out some details, which Laure found fascinating too, as an architecture student.
“I’d love to see some of the photographs you said you have,” Samuel said after a little while, and Sybil walked him back upstairs to her office, and took them out of the box where she kept them. She went through the photos, explaining who was who, and he was fascinated. There was one of his grandmother Bettina holding his mother, Lili, when she was only a few months old, and all the dates and many of the names were on the back. And then he noticed the resemblance between Laure and Lucy. “What happened to Lucy again?” he asked Sybil.
“She always suffered from ill health, and she died of pneumonia right after the Crash of ’29, when she was twenty. I think it totally disheartened her father, particularly with the reversals they had. He had a heart attack and died about six months later. They sold the house for the first time when he did. That was when your great-grandmother Gwyneth went to live in Europe with your grandmother Bettina. Your mother must have been about twelve then.”
“I think she said something about it,” he said, jogging his memory, “about her grandmother coming to live with them, my great-grandmother, but she died soon after. My mother always said that her grandmother died of a broken heart after her husband died. Somehow that sounds very sweet. I don’t think women do that these days. If I had died during our divorce, my wife would have celebrated, although we’re good friends now.” He laughed ruefully and Sybil smiled. “We divorced a long time ago, when Laure was five. The relationship didn’t last very long. Now we’re fine just as friends and co-parents, but it took a while.”
“Did she marry again?” Sybil asked him, and he shook his head.
“No, but she has two children with the man she lives with, and she’s very happy. I think I cured her from marriage,” he said and they both laughed. It sounded very French to Sybil. And she remembered that Bettina hadn’t wanted to marry again after Tony, until she fell in love with Louis in Paris. So maybe Samuel would feel that way one day too. He had said he had never remarried either and didn’t want to. He was content with his daughter and his work, which Sybil thought was too bad. He seemed like a nice man.
They walked downstairs to the next floor together to Sybil’s bedroom, so she could dress for dinner. The young people had stayed together downstairs, and Andy was showing the guests the antique pool table in the playroom in the basement.
“I’m so sorry I don’t have a dinner jacket for tonight,” he said apologetically.
“Don’t even think about it,” she reassured him. She was convinced by then that the Butterfields weren’t going to appear anyway. The Saint Martins were strangers, after all, so all he’d see were the Gregorys overdressed and they’d eat in the kitchen and look silly.
“I have a tie and a blue shirt,” he offered, “but I didn’t even bring a white shirt.” She couldn’t give him one of Blake’s because he was taller and broader than Samuel, although Samuel was tall too, but Blake’s shirts wouldn’t fit him.
They met in the hall again an hour later, and Samuel looked very nice in his tweed jacket, pale blue shirt, and navy blue Hermès tie, with proper shoes and black jeans, and Sybil was wearing one of her less dressy evening ensembles, a long black velvet skirt with a black cashmere sweater, and he complimented her on how nice she looked.
They all reached the stairs at the same time, and headed down toward the dining room. Blake and Sybil exchanged a glance and were almost sure they would find the dining room empty, but as soon as they reached it, Sybil saw immediately that the silver and crystal were gleaming, the candles were lit, Phillips was standing at attention, and all of the Butterfields were in place, as though they knew precisely that guests were expected. Augusta looked them over as they walked in, like a drill sergeant inspecting the troops.
“What on earth are those on your feet, Countess?” she asked Quinne, who burst out laughing. She was wearing shocking pink velvet Doc Martens with matching fishnet stockings under a black velvet miniskirt, with a hot pink angora sweater. “Did you steal them from a soldier?” Augusta asked her, and Quinne giggled again. Her own grandmother hadn’t liked them on Christmas either, but she thought Augusta was funny. And she asked Magnus who he’d sold his hairbrush to. And then she saw Samuel and raised an eyebrow. “Ah, yes, one of those fascinating modern outfits. Blake wears them occasionally too. I never understand them,” she said, as Samuel stopped in front of her, thinking it was all a joke at first, bowed low, kissed her hand, and said, “Bonsoir.”
“Ah, of course, that explains it,” she countered. “French. Naturally. They used to wear satin knee breeches and brocade coats. So what can one expect from them now?”
“So do the British at court, Mother,” Gwyneth reminded her, and Sybil stepped up next to Samuel, to introduce him to Augusta properly. “Mrs. Campbell, this is Samuel Saint Martin. He’s Lili’s son, Bettina’s grandson.” There was a long silent pause where even Samuel looked stunned, and Augusta more so.
“Which makes him…my great-great grandson…” she said with a startled expression. As far as she knew, Lili was still a child herself. It was a big leap for her to understand.
“And his daughter, Laure,” Sybil introduced her as well, and she was wearing a proper black dress of Caro’s, and her own high heels, as Augusta stared at Samuel and his daughter, struggling to assimilate what had happened.
“I saw them in the front hall today when they arrived,” Angus added proudly.
“What were you doing there?” his sister asked him. He never left his room in the daytime, and wasn’t supposed to.
“Lost my bagpipes for a minute…Phillips found them. All well. Pretty girl,” he said, indicating Laure. Augusta glared at him and everyone laughed, which broke the tension.
“My brother has appalling manners where women are concerned,” she explained to Samuel. “And you’re French, then. But Lili is American. She was born here.” She was trying to sort it all out, and to Augusta, L
ili still existed in the present. Gwyneth stepped in, from the other end of the table.
“She took French citizenship, Mother. Louis, Bettina’s husband, adopted her in France. Do you remember?”
“Oh, yes…of course I do…nice of him, since that other one disappeared,” she said, referring to Tony Salvatore.
“He died in the war, Mother,” Gwyneth corrected her. And Sybil led Samuel to a seat next to her at the table. Phillips had set the right number of places. He always did now, and had again tonight, as though someone had told him. She wondered if Gwyneth had. Samuel was looking bewildered when he sat down. Sybil introduced him to Gwyneth and Bert, his great-grandparents, who looked alive and well and in good spirits, contrary to the sad end he knew they had come to. And then Sybil introduced him to each of the children, while Caro and Andy explained to Laure who the players were, and their relationship to her. And sitting near each other, her resemblance to Lucy was even more striking, and so was Samuel’s to Bert.
“I’m not quite sure I understand,” he said softly to Sybil, as everyone watched him and his daughter. The Butterfields had obviously felt sufficiently at ease to include him and Laure at dinner that night, and be visible. After all, he was one of them, and so was Laure. They were Butterfields, whatever their name or nationality. “Have you hired actors to impersonate the family?” he asked her. How else could they all be there? What was remarkable was that they looked exactly like the photographs Sybil had shown him that afternoon. Blake felt almost sorry for him as he tried to absorb something that made no sense whatsoever and defied reason. Blake had been through it too, in the beginning, and he wasn’t even related to them.
“They’re not actors,” Sybil said gently, as Gwyneth overheard her and smiled. “We thought that the first time too. The family is all here. In this house. They never left after”—she chose her words carefully for their sake—“after they entered another dimension. They all came back, except your mother. She never really had any ties to the house. She was too young when she left.”
Past Perfect Page 23
