Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  Bianca had managed yet again to kill two birds with one stone. She had made the Minckuses believe she was a fully paid-up member of the Old Money set while at the same time luring into her world many of the people she had wanted to entertain for years. Most of them had never previously so much as bothered to acknowledge her across a room; but now, thanks to her magical connection with Belmont’s, they found themselves suddenly seduced by the charm and splendour of her way of life. Bianca could sense that finally, after all those years of patience - all those years of putting up with second-class people whom she had been obliged to pretend were first-class - the ice was melting, affording her access to the grandest harbour of all. She only hoped that all she would need to do now was keep up the momentum, entertaining and charming the way she customarily did, for these social acquaintances to become friends. Through them, she would be able to establish her status as one of the world’s pre-eminent socialites. Then, and only then, would she be able to sit back and enjoy all she had.

  Dolphie and Stella Minckus left France at the end of August, bedazzled, as all the others had been, by Bianca’s European lifestyle. Stella was even resolved to use her as a role model for what a great lady should be, quite unaware that, to many of the Old Money crowd, Bianca was the living embodiment of vulgarity.

  For her part, Bianca was sorry to see Dolphie and Stella Minckus go, not only because they were a welcome distraction from her grief but also because she did not want to be alone with the family for the five days that separated their departure from the arrival of Walter and Ruth Fargo Huron. Five days without the protection of guests at this crucial time, when she was only halfway through implementing her plans regarding Biancita, would expose her to too many questions about Dolores and Pedro from Antonia and Moussey. She therefore made sure Manolito was around as much as she could engineer, stating, on more than one occasion: ‘I’m going to miss you so much when you go back to school in September.’

  Surprisingly for someone who had not desired a fourth child since her teens and who had only fostered Manolito as a way of gaining access to his share of the Piedraplata family fortune, Bianca’s statement to Manolito had more than an element of truth to it. The irony was that her motives for the relationship also supplied the reason why it had flourished in human terms. Driven as it was by the financial need to keep the young man fond of her, she had developed, over the years, into a loving and considerate mother figure. Indeed, she had a better relationship with him than with either Pedro or Antonia. With the Piedraplata heir, she was constrained at all times by the need to gain and keep his love if she wanted to continue having a say in the disposal of his fortune, especially after he achieved his majority. It would only take a few acts of callousness of the kind she had employed over the years with Pedro and Antonia to chill relations between them, but Bianca was too intelligent for that. If Amanda was given a reason for reopening the question of guardianship on the grounds of negligence or abuse, she might regain both custody and control of that half of the Piedraplata inheritance.

  Even at the best of times litigation remained a fearsome bugbear to Bianca, although she was always very careful not to reveal her fears to anyone but Philippe. She still had a deep-seated fear, which Philippe’s reassurances had never been able to dissolve, that the Mexican judiciary might be waiting stealthily for just such an eventuality as a legal battle over guardianship to reopen the casebook on Ferdie’s death, so she always moved warily when dealing with Manolito or Amanda.

  Had Amanda even the slightest inkling how much Bianca feared Mexico she would have instituted proceedings to reverse Manolito’s guardianship immediately. But Bianca had been careful never to reveal her fears to anyone but Philippe. Meanwhile Manolito, blissfully ignorant of the fears of either woman, was due to fly out of Biarritz on the last day of August, with Biancita, Antonia and Moussey leaving three days after. The plan was - or so they believed - that he would meet Amanda and Anna Clara in London, while his stepsister and brother-in-law would fly on to Mexico to return the little girl to the mother, who was impatiently awaiting her return.

  The night before their departure, Bianca put the next stage of her real plan into action. She began by telephoning Mexico City to speak to Dolores. The timing of the call was all-important as she had to prepare the ground with an unsuspecting Antonia and Moussey then ensure that it was not possible to revisit the subject until after Manolito’s departure.

  Fortunately the members of her family were seldom alone together. Every day there was a luncheon party or a dinner. Whatever the event, the family was constantly surrounded by ‘friends’ of one sort or another. This made for a stimulating and distracting time, but it did not encourage personal conversations of any depth. This, of course, was the norm for those who lived in the social world, and the members of Bianca’s family were all used to it, the way most social people are. Indeed, Bianca preferred it that way.

  These highly socialized and regulated circumstances gave her almost total control over how long a conversation of a personal nature with a member of the family would last, where it would take place…and what its likely outcome would be.

  Progress had been tricky because Bianca could not afford to have Manolito around when she discussed the subject of Biancita with Antonia and Moussey. She did not want him to hear something that might make him question how she had come to be his legal guardian.

  Being clear about what she needed to do, Bianca telephoned Dolores from the privacy of her bedroom. ‘Darling girl,’ she said in her sweetest, most considerate tone of voice, ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m well thank you, Madame Mahfud. I’m writing you a thank-you note for sending us to the Botkin…’

  ‘Now, now, darling girl, there’s no need for you to do anything as formal as that.’

  ‘How’s Biancita?’ Dolores then asked.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ Bianca suddenly interjected, actually hearing her daughter-in-law perfectly. ‘Dolores…? Dolores?’

  ‘I can hear you. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Dolores…? Dolores…? If you can hear me, please ring back immediately. We seem to be having trouble with this phone.’

  With that, Bianca hung up. Within a minute, the telephone rang. She let it ring. Louis, the butler, answered it, as he had been trained to do, Bianca being particularly insistent that no one should answer the telephones but Louis. ‘It’s so common to answer one’s own phone,’ she was often heard to say. She waited until Louis buzzed her to pick up the receiver. ‘Madame, it’s Señora Calman calling from Mexico.’

  ‘It’s about time,’ she said, knowing that Dolores could not overhear her until Louis switched the line over. ‘The poor child has been here for a month, and her mother hasn’t even bothered to speak to her once. Just give me a moment to compose myself before you put her on. I’m so upset I can’t tell you. She can phone to ask for more money, as she has done on two separate occasions already, but she hasn’t wanted even once to speak to her own daughter. What sort of woman is she, I have to ask myself.’ Then, slowing her breathing, she said: ‘OK Louis, you can put her through now.’ Somehow Bianca always found it easier to believe her own stories when she felt the servants had already been persuaded to accept them as true.

  Giving the butler time to put down his extension, Bianca waited before speaking. ‘Hello, Dolores,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Is that better, Madame Mahfud?’ Dolores asked in all innocence.

  ‘Yes, darling girl. Thank you for phoning back. Listen, Dolores, there’s a slight problem. Biancita’s picked up an ear infection in the swimming pool, and the doctor says she runs a danger of perforating her eardrum if she flies. I don’t suppose you want her to run the risk of endangering her hearing for life, do you?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘That’s settled then. I’ll keep you posted on her progress, and when it clears up, I’ll send her back.’

  ‘When do you think that will be?’ Dolores said desperately, the pain o
f not seeing her child cutting through the telephone wires.

  ‘Maybe next week. I don’t suppose you’d like a word with her?’

  ‘I’d love it, but it might upset her,’ replied Dolores, having absorbed Bianca’s lessons too well.

  ‘You’re quite right, darling girl. Of course it might. So silly of me not to have thought of that. You see, Julio was right. You really are the most thoughtful girl.’

  As soon as she hung up, Bianca headed downstairs, looking for Antonia. She expected to find her by the swimming pool, but Louis said she was upstairs, in Biancita’s room, so she returned upstairs.

  Bianca entered the bedroom to see Antonia and Moussey playing horsy with the child. ‘What a picture this makes,’ she said, smiling with satisfaction. ‘A real family picture. Happy and loving. If only Julio could be here to see this.’

  ‘Hi, Mama,’ Antonia said, while Moussey whinnied his greeting.

  ‘You’ll never believe who just phoned.’

  ‘Who?’Antonia said, smiling indulgently at the way her mother always made you ask for the information she was dying to impart to you.

  ‘This poor child’s mother. She’s asking if we can keep her for another week or two. I said yes, of course, but it’s a bit rich, don’t you think? That your poor brother isn’t even properly cold in his grave and already she has not time for his daughter?’

  ‘Did she give a reason?’ Antonia asked.

  ‘She said she has “things to do”,’ Bianca said acerbically. ‘Although I don’t suppose it takes much imagination to guess what those things are. What are we letting this poor child in for, if we send her back to a mother who doesn’t even speak to her for days on end and, when the time comes for her daughter’s return, wants to delay it? That sort of conduct doesn’t strike me as particularly responsible or loving, but maybe this is a conversation we should be having when the darling little tyke is out of earshot.’

  For the remainder of the evening, there was no possibility of having a personal discussion with her daughter and son-in-law, as Bianca had guests in for dinner and took pains to keep the last couple entertained until Manolito had gone to bed.

  As planned, the young man left the following morning to take a scheduled Air France flight from Nice Airport to London Heathrow. That same evening she planned to bring matters to a head over dinner. She, Antonia and Moussey would be dining en famille with Philippe, who had arrived that afternoon and would leave on the Lear two days later for Mexico with his stepdaughter, son-in-law and granddaughter.

  Bianca waited until Louis had cleared the soup plates before introducing the subject of Dolores and Biancita. ‘What are we going to do about my precious little granddaughter?’ she asked. ‘Her mother clearly has no interest in her, and if we let her out of our hands, God knows what fate will have in store for her.’

  ‘Have you thought of taking her in and raising her as our own?’ asked Philippe, who loved both Bianca’s children and Biancita as well.

  ‘No, no, no. I couldn’t go back to all the fuss of child rearing. But it’s sweet of you to think of that, my darling,’ she said, blowing a kiss down the length of the table to him. ‘Isn’t your Uncle Philippe the most wonderful man on earth, Antonia?’

  ‘After Moussey, Mama,’ Antonia said, well used to her mother’s reliance upon flattery and sudden switches of mood.

  ‘You two could take her in, you know,’ Bianca said, bringing her plan to the boil. ‘After all, you might never have a child of your own, and she is your brother’s daughter…though quite which brother seems to be a mystery. Maybe you’d both like to talk it over and let us know what you think?’

  ‘I don’t need to discuss it, Aunt Bianca,’ Moussey said. ‘I know my mind. I’ll have her, if Antonia will.’

  ‘I certainly will have her,’ Antonia said, ‘if that’s the only way she’s going to get a loving and stable home.’

  ‘Good. That’s settled, then,’ Bianca said. ‘What a relief. Now I suppose I’d better go to Mexico with Uncle Philippe and iron out the details with Dolores. I daresay it’s money she’s after, so let’s see how many pieces of silver it will take before she sells us our own flesh and blood back. I tell you, children: the longer I live, the more I realize how terrible some people can be. At least we’ll rescue that little treasure, and you two will have your own daughter. Well, we’ll happily pay the price, whatever it is…even if it includes having to go back to bloody Mexico.’

  ‘I don’t know what we’d all do without you,’ Philippe said, suffused with admiration for his caring and capable wife.

  As soon as dinner was over, Bianca headed straight upstairs to her bedroom and called Juan Gilberto Macias to instruct him to prepare draft documents for Dolores to sign, relinquishing custody of Biancita. Then she discussed with Philippe the financial question of how much to offer her daughter-in-law. He suggested $200,000: a figure she considered might be too small. ‘How’s she going to fight for more?’ Philippe said, not for one minute questioning the veracity of his wife’s claims. ‘She’s a whore and a negligent mother. She’s lucky to get that.’

  On the way to Mexico in the Lear, Philippe worked on his latest deal for Banco Imperiale involving some Colombian drug barons, while Bianca worked on her strategy. Between bouts of calculation, she looked at movies and flicked through her favourite magazines: Town & Country, didn’t bother even to glance at Time or Newsweek, but as the jet approached Mexico City airport her mood changed, and she became perceptibly agitated at the mere thought of being in Mexico again.

  The element of surprise being crucial to the success of their plan, Bianca and Philippe had not told anyone except Juan Gilberto Macias that they were arriving together, so Pedro was profoundly shocked when his mother walked into the house with his stepfather. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, so stunned that there was no trace of hostility, just surprise, in his voice.

  ‘I have business to attend to…if you have no objection to me being in my own house,’ his mother spat out, still intent on presenting herself as the aggrieved party.

  ‘So how goes it, Uncle Philippe?’ Pedro said, ignoring his mother’s barb.

  ‘Fine, my boy,’ he replied, pleased as ever to see his stepson. ‘Maybe we can go fishing this weekend.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Pedro replied, walking out of the room.

  ‘I’m going up to the bedroom to freshen up and make a few calls,’ Bianca said to Philippe.

  ‘I’ll be in the study,’ he said. ‘Let me know how it goes.’

  Hating being in this country and in this house, she walked up the stairs to the bedroom she used to share with Ferdie and now shared with Philippe. She picked up her own personal telephone and dialled Dolores’ number. ‘Hello, my dear,’ she said, her voice far more neutral than it had been since Julio’s funeral. ‘It’s Julio’s mother here.’

  ‘Hi, Madame Mahfud,’ Dolores said, responding not to her mother-in-law’s present tone of voice but to the solicitous one she had grown used to in the last six weeks. ‘How are you? Is Biancita better now?’

  ‘She’s quite well, thank you,’ Bianca replied. ‘But rather than talk to you on the phone, why don’t I come over and see you?’

  ‘You mean, you’re here in Mexico? You brought Biancita back to me yourself? I didn’t expect that you’d do it yourself, I have to confess. How thoughtful you are, Madame.’

  ‘Shall we say in fifteen minutes?’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Dolores said excitedly. ‘Oh, the sheer joy of seeing my darling baby again.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes, then,’ Bianca said, still neutral but pleasant, and rang off.

  Dolores was standing by the front door, watching for the car, hoping to get a glimpse of Biancita as Bianca’s black Lincoln Continental came up the driveway. She bounded down the steps of the house so that she would be beside the car when it stopped, searching for Biancita. Not seeing her, she concluded that her daughter must be sitting in the back seat out of view. In her mind’s eye, cou
ld see her sitting like a proper little lady, emulating her elegant grandmother.

  Then the car stopped, and Duarte opened Bianca’s door for her to alight as Dolores looked into the car and could find no trace of her daughter. For a split second, Dolores wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Nonetheless, Dolores stepped forward to kiss her mother-in-law in greeting.

  Bianca deftly avoided the kiss, however, lowering her head in such a way that Dolores would not think anything of it. She wanted to give the younger woman no warning of what was to come, so greeted her charmingly if distantly. She then led the way into the house she had never been in before, all the while being mindful that she must be careful not to compromise herself in front of the staff. She had learned her lesson well on that score, from the fallout following Ferdie’s death. ‘I’m absolutely shattered after that long flight,’ she said in a pleasant and neutral tone of voice as Dolores followed her into the sitting-room, ‘and dying of thirst. My throat’s so parched I won’t be able to utter one word until you’ve got the maid to bring me a long cold glass of Coca-Cola.’

  ‘So was the flight OK? Is Biancita OK?’ Bianca asked. ‘I didn’t expect her back so soon. I thought her ear infection would take longer to clear up than this.’

  ‘That drink,’ Bianca said lightly and waved Delores away to order it from the maid ‘I can barely swallow.’

  As soon as the younger woman was out of the room, she set off in the opposite direction to explore the interior of the house Julio had lived in.

  Dolores came back to find that her mother-in-law had disappeared from view. ‘Madame Mahfud,’ she shouted.

  Silence.

  ‘Madame Mahfud, where are you?’ she sang out.