Past Perfect
Page 24
“Are you telling me,” Samuel stared at Sybil intently, “that the entire family is here, all of them, still living in the house a hundred years later?” Sybil nodded assent, and Samuel stared at them one by one, thinking it must be a joke, but as he looked at them, he knew it wasn’t. “That is unbelievable. It’s not possible. Did you know it when you bought the house?”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Did they appear to you one by one?”
“No. We heard noises and walked into the dining room three days after we moved in, and everyone was here, just like you did tonight.” And she’d seen them after the earthquake the night before.
“It was quite shocking at first,” Augusta said to him. “But we all got used to it, and they’re very nice people and we love them. We wouldn’t live without them now,” she added warmly, which impressed Sybil and Blake, and touched them. “And you, dear boy, are related to us, so we had to have dinner with you. We wouldn’t miss it. I hope you’ll stay here with us.” She was being unusually gracious, and Samuel was nearly speechless. His daughter was very quiet too. It really was like entering another dimension, and he had no idea how it worked or if they were now trapped there. Sybil could see a slight panic in his eyes.
“You can come and go as you wish. It’s just an honor to be included in the Butterfields’ lives. And it has worked very well for us.” Except that Magnus was disappointed that Charlie was slowly growing up, but they still had fun together. Magnus would always be the age he died.
“Can others see you?” Samuel asked the group collectively, and they all shook their heads.
“Only the Gregorys and two of the children’s friends, Max and Quinne,” Bert explained. “We’re very happy to have them with us. And we hope you and your daughter stay too, for as long as you like.” Samuel let Phillips pour him several glasses of wine before he felt calm again.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you on the phone, or you would have thought I was mad or drunk when I called you,” Sybil said, and he nodded. “But I wanted you to come and meet everyone and see the house. I didn’t know then if they’d be willing to meet you or not. But even so, I thought it would be worth a trip to visit the house, and maybe you could write the family history.”
“It certainly is worth the trip,” he agreed. “And this is so much more…important…and exciting…and so moving. What an extraordinary experience,” he said quietly, and smiled at Sybil. “Thank you for sharing this with me. I would never have known otherwise.” He was sorry his mother wasn’t there, but he understood why. She had always been so adamant, even with him, about not having any tie to the house in San Francisco, and no interest in it, not being there since she was a baby, not being American, and being French. Her emotional ties were to the Lambertins, her adoptive father’s family, and not the Butterfields.
And then he wondered about something else and asked Sybil quietly, as his guide through their extraordinary world. He felt privileged to be there above all else, and felt a bond to them he never knew he had. Laure seemed to as well and loved her new friends. “What year are we in? I haven’t been able to figure it out.”
“It took me a while too. It’s 1919 for them, exactly a hundred years behind us, to the day,” which made sense from the clothes they were wearing and the events they discussed. It felt to him like asking about the time difference with another country where you were planning to travel. Only in this case it was measured in centuries, not hours. And if it was 1919 for them, he understood why his grandmother wasn’t there. She was in France then.
For the rest of the evening, Samuel joined in the conversation, and Laure and the young people had fun together. Angus offered to play the bagpipes for them in celebration, and everyone said another time. Having Samuel and Laure there had energized them all, and after the Butterfields had retired for the night, as mysteriously and instantaneously as they always did once they left the dining room, Samuel sat with Sybil and Blake for a long time in the kitchen, talking about it and drinking wine. He had never had an experience like it before, and doubted he would again, away from this house.
“Thank God you bought it. Imagine if we’d never known,” he said to his hosts. “And what do you do about the things you know and they don’t? We’ve both read the book,” he said, looking at Sybil. “If they’re in 1919, they don’t know what’s coming in 1929 and after that. Have you warned them?”
Sybil shook her head. “Blake and I have talked about it a lot. It doesn’t seem fair if we don’t tell them, but wrong if we do. We can’t change it for them. The war, the stock market crash, the accidents, the deaths. They all happened a hundred years ago. We can’t rewrite history. We can only try to gentle it for them when it happens, and console them. But, oddly, they have much to teach us, so we don’t make the same mistakes.” He hadn’t thought about that, and when he did, he realized she was right. In a way, it was a blessing for all of them. “And even when they die, they come back,” she explained. “They’re so tightly bound to one another and this house, they don’t leave for long. It took Josiah about four months to come back. And when Augusta died of Spanish flu, she was back in a month. She’s a strong soul.” They all laughed, and Samuel went upstairs that night, shaking his head over the remarkable evening he’d had, and slept till noon the next day. He came downstairs and found Sybil in the kitchen. He had a terrible headache and a hangover.
“Did I dream all that last night?” he asked her. “How drunk was I?”
“No, you didn’t, and you weren’t drunk.” She smiled at him. She had a slight hangover too, but he had drunk more wine. “Laure is out with my kids, by the way. And we’re taking you out tonight.” They wanted to show him and Laure a little of San Francisco, and she suspected that the Butterfields were worn out from the night before too. It cost them something to appear that strongly and be so connected to someone new. Gwyneth had come to see her that morning, and they had agreed to skip dinner that night. The next day was New Year’s Eve, and they’d all be up late again.
Sybil made him a cup of strong coffee and scrambled eggs, and he felt better afterward. And Blake suggested they go out for a drive and look around.
“I feel like I’m in another world, or caught between two worlds,” Samuel said to them and Blake nodded.
“You are, to some extent. Your old world is still here, just as ours is, but this other world that they’re part of is open to you too. We don’t know how it happened, but we’re very glad it did.”
Samuel thought about it for a minute, as he looked at the Golden Gate Bridge and smiled at them. “So am I. Thank you for finding me and getting me here,” he said, as Sybil patted his hand, and they drove back to the house. He wasn’t sure which world or dimension he was in, but he felt oddly at peace.
Chapter 19
After a very entertaining dinner with Samuel and Laure in Chinatown the night before, the Gregorys and all the young people planned to go all out on New Year’s Eve.
Samuel had rented a set of tails with Blake’s help. Caroline lent Laure another dress. Sybil had bought a new evening gown the week before, and everyone met in the dining room for a fabulous dinner with oysters, caviar, lobster, pheasant, baked Alaska for dessert, and a great deal of very fine champagne, which they continued drinking in the ballroom as they had on New Year’s Eve for three years. Samuel was still trying to decipher what he was seeing, and asking Sybil for explanations constantly. She was still encouraging him to write a book, based on Bettina’s but going further and in greater depth about all of the family members, their histories and the people they had touched in some way and those who had touched them, and what they had done in their lives. And the key that linked them was the house.
They all kissed and hugged at midnight, and danced for long hours afterward. Samuel asked Augusta to dance the first waltz with him, and won her heart forever. She told everyone proudly that he was her great-great-grandson from France, which she managed to make sound like a compliment, which was a first fo
r her. And she wouldn’t allow Uncle Angus to dance with Laure, so he danced with Sybil instead, and in a little while Blake cut in, to save her from Angus’s lustful remarks.
The evening seemed exceptionally festive, and everyone was in a good mood. There was no war on, everyone was healthy, Blake was out of danger with his business and had moved on, and Sybil had finally finished her book, which was cause for celebration in itself.
Samuel thoroughly enjoyed the evening with them, and was already sad that they were going back to France in a few days, but he said he had to return to the Sorbonne to teach his final classes, give one more exam, and say goodbye to the office and colleagues he had enjoyed for so long.
“Why don’t you come back when you finish?” Sybil suggested. His visit had been a great success, and his Butterfield relatives loved him and Laure.
He sat and talked to Augusta after he danced with her and found her stories fascinating. Her mind was totally clear, despite her great age, although her brother’s wasn’t. And then, feeling the inexorable pull that Sybil had hoped for, he smiled at her as Phillips poured more champagne.
“I’ll do it. I’ll come back in February to start.”
“To start what?” Sybil asked him cautiously.
“The book you want me to write,” he said with a broad smile. “That’s why you asked me here, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t, but that’s a wonderful bonus. I tried to find you because you deserved to know your family, and for them to know the next generation, and Lili’s son, and now Laure. You’re part of all this, and you always will be, just as they are.”
“You’re part of it too, or they wouldn’t have let you in,” he said knowingly.
“We’re adopted, you’re blood,” she said, and he smiled as he watched everyone dancing in the ballroom. Sybil went to tell Gwyneth that Samuel was going to write the book about the family and the house, and he joined them a minute later.
“May I help you with it?” Gwyneth asked shyly. She was thrilled he was going to do it, and she knew Bert would be too. And it was Sybil who had convinced him.
“Of course,” Samuel said generously, and he turned to Sybil. “Will you help with the research?”
“I’d be happy to,” she answered. She had finished her own book at last. And the Butterfield book would be much more fun to write than her huge official tome about design, although she thought her publisher would be pleased with it. But Samuel would put his heart and soul into the book about the family, and Sybil and Gwyneth would help. It would be a joint effort. They were a community and a family, and provided each other strength, love, and consolation, which was why they had come together, Sybil was convinced.
Sybil thought about it as Samuel led Gwyneth onto the floor, to dance with his very beautiful great-grandmother.
She fully understood now, and had accepted, that she could not protect them from the future and their own history, although the Butterfields had reached far into the future and changed theirs. They couldn’t alter life events, or avoid challenges and heartbreaks. Whatever the century, their children had to grow up, wars could not be stopped, and their loved ones would die one day, whether they knew when or not. What mattered was the love the two families shared with each other, which had been the greatest gift to all of them, in a hundred years, whether the phenomenon could be explained or not. It didn’t matter, as long as they were together at Butterfield Mansion. The future would always be uncertain, and the past was what it was meant to be, which was perfect in a way.
Blake came to find Sybil a few minutes later, and they stood together as Bert raised a glass and wished them all an excellent New Year, full of health, prosperity, and joy.
“To 1920!” the elders of the family toasted in response.
“I hope it will be a wonderful year for us all,” Sybil echoed with feeling.
“As I recall, it was.” Augusta smiled at their family and friends, and sipped her champagne.
They danced in the ballroom as two new years began, a hundred years apart.
To my much loved children,
Beatie, Trevor, Todd, Nick, Samantha,
Victoria, Vanessa, Maxx, and Zara.
May your past, present, and future
be a blessing and a gift to each of you.
And may the history you share be
a bond of love, strength, and tenderness
now and always, for all your days.
With all my heart and love forever and always.
With all my love,
Mom/d.s.
By Danielle Steel
PAST PERFECT • FAIRYTALE • THE RIGHT TIME • THE DUCHESS • AGAINST ALL ODDS • DANGEROUS GAMES • THE MISTRESS • THE AWARD • RUSHING WATERS • MAGIC • THE APARTMENT • PROPERTY OF A NOBLEWOMAN • BLUE • PRECIOUS GIFTS • UNDERCOVER • COUNTRY • PRODIGAL SON • PEGASUS • A PERFECT LIFE • POWER PLAY • WINNERS • FIRST SIGHT • UNTIL THE END OF TIME • THE SINS OF THE MOTHER • FRIENDS FOREVER • BETRAYAL • HOTEL VENDÔME • HAPPY BIRTHDAY • 44 CHARLES STREET • LEGACY • FAMILY TIES • BIG GIRL • SOUTHERN LIGHTS • MATTERS OF THE HEART • ONE DAY AT A TIME • A GOOD WOMAN • ROGUE • HONOR THYSELF • AMAZING GRACE • BUNGALOW 2 • SISTERS • H.R.H. • COMING OUT • THE HOUSE • TOXIC BACHELORS • MIRACLE • IMPOSSIBLE • ECHOES • SECOND CHANCE • RANSOM • SAFE HARBOUR • JOHNNY ANGEL • DATING GAME • ANSWERED PRAYERS • SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ • THE COTTAGE • THE KISS • LEAP OF FAITH • LONE EAGLE • JOURNEY • THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET • THE WEDDING • IRRESISTIBLE FORCES • GRANNY DAN • BITTERSWEET • MIRROR IMAGE • THE KLONE AND I • THE LONG ROAD HOME • THE GHOST • SPECIAL DELIVERY • THE RANCH • SILENT HONOR • MALICE • FIVE DAYS IN PARIS • LIGHTNING • WINGS • THE GIFT • ACCIDENT • VANISHED • MIXED BLESSINGS • JEWELS • NO GREATER LOVE • HEARTBEAT • MESSAGE FROM NAM • DADDY • STAR • ZOYA • KALEIDOSCOPE • FINE THINGS • WANDERLUST • SECRETS • FAMILY ALBUM • FULL CIRCLE • CHANGES • THURSTON HOUSE • CROSSINGS • ONCE IN A LIFETIME • A PERFECT STRANGER • REMEMBRANCE • PALOMINO • LOVE: POEMS • THE RING • LOVING • TO LOVE AGAIN • SUMMER’S END • SEASON OF PASSION • THE PROMISE • NOW AND FOREVER • PASSION’S PROMISE • GOING HOME
Nonfiction
PURE JOY: The Dogs We Love
A GIFT OF HOPE: Helping the Homeless
HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: The Story of Nick Traina
For Children
PRETTY MINNIE IN PARIS
PRETTY MINNIE IN HOLLYWOOD
About the Author
DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 650 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Fairytale, The Right Time, The Duchess, Against All Odds, Dangerous Games, The Mistress, The Award, Rushing Waters, Magic, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; Pure Joy, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood.
daniellesteel.com
Facebook.com/DanielleSteelOfficial
Twitter: @daniellesteel
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