Keys to the Castle

by Donna Ball

  “Good heavens!” She gave him an astonished look. “I never wear hats, look hideous in them. And how should I recall what color ball your schoolmates might have tossed some forty years ago?”

  “Good God,” he said softly. “Has it been that long?” He sipped his drink. “Ah well, never mind. It was just a foolishness that crossed my mind the other day.”

  She held his gaze for a moment, and then returned to her drink.

  “I’ve heard from your sister Margaret.”

  “Indeed. How is she doing?”

  “They’ve another one the way.”

  “Good Lord.” His tone was absent. “How many does that make? Seven?”

  “Four.”

  “Perhaps I’ll pop in to see her when I’m in Scotland next.”

  “Well, I do certainly hope you’re more entertaining by then than you are now.”

  “Mother,” Ash said abruptly, “you know those Americans, the Bostarts, don’t you? They bought that ruin outside of Lyon a few years back.”

  “I believe so, yes. He was in bonds, or something boring like that, wasn’t he?”

  “I saw them at a party when I was in France last month. They inquired after you.”

  “Did they? How lovely. I shall have to send a note. It’s been some time.”

  “When you do, I wonder if you might suggest they call on Sara sometime. It must be difficult for her, all alone in a strange country. She’d enjoy a visit from her fellow countrymen.”

  His mother noted, with great interest but without comment, that, in the past hour they had sat together this was no less than the seventh time he had brought up the subject of Daniel’s widow.

  She said, “I understood you to say she had the child with her. An odd arrangement, that.”

  He frowned a little. “There’s nothing odd about it. It was very generous of her.”

  “To be sure,” his mother murmured, sipping her whiskey.

  “At any rate, I’d like to think she isn’t simply pining away out there.”

  “Very likely she’s far too busy to pine, my dear, with a five-year-old to take care of and that monstrous place on her hands. What on earth does she intend to do with it, anyway?”

  Ash tossed back the remainder of his Scotch. “I don’t know.”

  “I would sell, if I were she.”

  “So would I.” Ash set down his empty glass with a rather impolite clack against the marble-topped side table.

  “No one can afford those old places anymore except the Saudis.”

  “Yes, I know. Mother, if you would just . . .”

  “Don’t worry.” His mother gave a dismissing wave of her hand. “I’ll make certain your little American isn’t wanting for company while she’s in France. I’m really quite good at this sort of thing, you know.”

  He smiled, and for the first time it seemed genuine. “Yes, actually, you are.” He stood and crossed to her chair. “Now I must rush. I’ve a dinner tonight.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Mother.”

  “What a very peculiar thing to say.” She pretended to shrug him off, trying to hide her pleasure with a scowl. “You might demonstrate it by visiting more often—and by being far better company when you do.”

  He merely grinned at her and blew her a kiss from the doorway on his way out.

  When he was gone, she took up pen and paper. But she wrote, not to the Bostarts, but to Rondelais. Having given the matter some thought, she had decided that there was nothing much going on in the country this time of year and that she was curious, all in all, as to what type of woman could so befuddle her son as to cause him to visit his mother in the middle of the week for no reason at all.

  And there was really no better way to find out than to investigate the matter in person.

  THIRTEEN

  For the first couple of days after Ash left, Sara was horrified by what she had done. She had taken responsibility for a child whose language she didn’t even speak. She had virtually moved to a foreign country with no preparation, no background, and only one change of clean underwear left. She still used the currency converter and couldn’t recognize coins. And inside the belly of this vast, ancient structure all alone on the hill she and Alyssa were as tiny, and as defense-less, as baby robins in a nest.

  She didn’t answer Ash’s voice mails because she didn’t want him to hear in her voice how uncertain she was, and she didn’t want him rushing back in to fix things. He had left her with an ache in her core so profound it felt as though vital organs had been ripped out, and she did not want to be around him now. It took all of the strength she had to focus on Alyssa, keeping her clean and safe and well fed and entertained and making certain that the little girl never guessed the person she depended on for all of those things was, in fact, scared to death.

  But she soon learned that necessity trumps fear every time, and if she had made a horrible mistake by staying here—and by volunteering to care for Alyssa—it was definitely too late to regret the decision now. There was no time to be baffled by language, currency, or train schedules when Alyssa needed clothes and other necessities. There was no time to feel sorry for herself when every waking moment was spent making sure Alyssa didn’t tumble down the stairs or fall into the moat or paint herself, from head to toe, in mud. Her entire conscious being was consumed with all things five-year-old, and it was exhausting. For the most part Alyssa was a happy, energetic, and sweetly affectionate child. But she knew how to throw a tantrum when she was thwarted, and a child’s endless stream of “Why?” and “What’s that?” took on an entirely new dimension when the answers had to be given in two languages.

  Most nights, if she managed to get Alyssa bathed and into bed by eight, Sara was dozing by eight thirty. But sometimes, with her back aching from lifting Alyssa and her muscles sore from dragging furniture from one room to the next, her thoughts racing with things she had to get done before Alyssa awoke the next day, she would sneak down to the terrace and sit with a glass of wine she was almost too tired to sip, watching the sun set over the layered greens and purples of the valley. That was when she missed Ash. She missed his crisp British accent and his lazy humor. She missed the thoughtful blue of his eyes and the way he held himself, with such easy, elegant confidence. She missed the way he looked at her when she was talking, completely absorbed in what she had to say. She missed the way he could be such an unexpected smart-ass, and make her laugh. But mostly she missed the fantasy he had created for her here, that sense of living in a timeless fairy tale where all things were possible and nothing bad ever happened. And she hated that the fantasy was gone forever.

  At first she had been furious with him. Furious that he dared to play games with her over something this important, furious that he thought he could win, furious that, just when she had started to relax her guard around him again, he had shown his true colors. But most of all she was furious, hurt, and deeply disappointed that Michele had been right about him. That he was so predictable.

  And that he was not, after all, Prince Charming.

  After dissecting in minute detail the forty-eight pages of settlement documents she had insisted that Mr. Winkle fax to her immediately, the logical businesswoman in Sara was forced to admit that the compromise he offered was a good one, and if she tried to fight him, she would only be hurting herself, and, by default, Alyssa. Until the question of Alyssa’s parentage was resolved, neither one of them would have full legal rights to the property, and by continuing to pay the taxes, Ash had forestalled a potential financial crisis for her. And for himself, of course, he had kept the door open to a potential financial windfall in the future.

  The truth was that he had acted in the only way that, being Ash, he could act. So after a few days of fuming every time she thought about him, she stopped being angry at him. It was just too much hard work, and she needed every ounce of energy she had to keep up with Alyssa. She stopped being angry. But she didn’t stop being disappointed.

  And sometimes, late at night w
hen she was too tired to even sleep, or when she sat on the terrace and ached with loneliness for what might have been, she would take a deeply secret and guilty pleasure in playing back his messages on her phone, just to hear the sound of his voice. The way her name, Sara, rolled off his tongue with all soft vowels and a resonant r. His drawled my dear, and the crisp consonants of his impatience. She remembered the way he had kissed Alyssa’s hair and swung her up into his arms, and how stricken he had looked when he had come for her that day, realizing Michele had abandoned her, and how desperately he had embraced the little girl then. She thought about how Alyssa adored him, and then persuaded herself that it could not have been very hard for him to win a five-year-old’s heart; after all, look how easily he had captured her own.

  She thought about the way he had kissed her, that one unguarded night that seemed like a lifetime ago, and when she did a flush started in her core and spread outward through her skin until her fingertips were hot and her chest ached. Until she could taste him.

  The emotions left her feeling foolish and confused. She was barely a year widowed. Even though Daniel had betrayed her with his secrets and his lies, even though the marriage she thought she had had never really existed, it felt wrong, somehow, to have been so quickly drawn into another man’s charm. It was wrong, it was foolish . . . but she missed Ash. And she took comfort in the sound of his voice, even if it was only a recorded playback.

  When Sara discovered that Marie—the plump, cheerful woman who came up from the village every morning to clean their rooms and do their laundry and leave the refrigerator filled with scrumptious covered dishes and the cupboard filled with homemade jams and sweet soft breads—had a granddaughter close to Alyssa’s age, life at Rondelais improved dramatically. At least four mornings a week Marie brought her granddaughter to play with Alyssa, and the two girls became fast friends. A huge burden was lifted from Sara’s shoulders just knowing that Alyssa was not lonely, and that she was doing the kinds of things a five-year-old should do—even if she did live in a castle.

  On fair days, Sara worked in the gardens—trying to bring the lavender and rosemary under control, trimming back the wild shrubs, sorting out what remained of the kitchen garden—while the girls raced and tumbled across the lawn nearby. Or they would bring their baby dolls and coloring books inside and Sara would set them up in one of the mostly empty upstairs rooms that she had designated as a playroom, and while they were immersed in their world of make-believe, she would return to one of her projects.

  It all started when Sara decided to move out of the elegant blue and gold suite and into one of the hotel-type rooms where less damage could be done by sticky little fingers and muddy shoes, because, even with her choice of rooms in which to sleep and with an entire castle in which to play, Alyssa always ended up in Sara’s room. Sara hated the new room, which reminded her of sleeping in a conference center, and Alyssa pouted over the loss of the “princess room,” as she called it. Who had ever had the idea of painting real wood panels—four-hundred-year-old wood panels—such an ugly shade of taupe? And covering marble floors with Berber carpeting?

  The fact of the matter was that Ash had been right: The castle was not particularly livable at all, especially with a child thrown into the mix, and after the first couple of weeks of novelty had worn off, Sara began to see that. The rooms upstairs were too large and linear and the rooms downstairs were too cold and empty. And while Alyssa had a wonderful time skating along the marble hallways in her socks and knocking down plastic bowling pins with a plastic bowling ball in an empty reception room, this was hardly a home. She couldn’t picture Daniel as having grown up here. She couldn’t imagine any child growing up here, but dozens of them had, for generation after generation after generation.

  Tentatively she had started to explore the other rooms, gently tugging dust covers off antique furniture, polishing grime off of windows and tarnish off of metal. When Ash had taken her on her first brisk tour of the castle he had done so as part estate agent, part museum curator. He’d pointed out the things he thought would interest her—number of bathrooms and beds, fireplaces, hand-painted tiles, imported fixtures, square footage, connections to history, practical usages. It had all blended together for her in a kind of daze of disbelief. But now, on her own, she slowly began to uncover a way of life that made sense to her.

  There was an entire apartment located on the second floor, far removed from the showy Queen’s Chamber and the bland taupe hotel rooms, and it was in these rooms that a family had lived. The bedrooms were elaborate, to be sure, with tall four-posters and separate sitting areas and heavy carpets, now rolled up and stored under canvas. There were separate dressing rooms with empty clothing racks and shelves, and crystal chandeliers, and tall-ceilinged, elegant bathrooms, which did not appear to have functional plumbing. But there was also a cozy central sitting room with comfortable, modern furniture, and even a television set, and a small, bright, red-tiled kitchen whose plumbing, once again, did not work. Sara felt like a burglar as she went through these private rooms, because so much of the family—Daniel’s family—was left behind. A book on a nightstand. A carved wooden truck that she almost crunched underfoot. It had to have been Daniel’s toy when he was a child. The ghosts of those who belonged here were everywhere, and she was careful to touch nothing, to disturb nothing, because she was, after all, the intruder.

  She wasn’t comfortable opening up that section of the house again, but she had to find a way to make her stay here—and Alyssa’s—more functional. That was when she decided that, if four-hundred-year-old walls could be painted taupe, they could also be painted vanilla; that carpet could be ripped up and soft floral rugs placed in their stead; that stiff brown industrial draperies could be replaced with floaty sheers and easy-care bedding could be upgraded to something slightly more luxurious. And that the toilets—all of them—needed to work.

  To that end, she called Pietro, who came with his silent, grumpy father and his trail of cigarette smoke to examine the situation. “Sì, signorina,” he assured her cheerfully. “We will make for you the most beautiful WC in all the valley, we will build it magnifico, sì? Do you know Britney Spears?”

  Sara regretfully admitted that she did not, and reminded him that she really didn’t need an entirely new bathroom built; all she wanted was for the existing ones to work. He assured her that all would be well, and returned the next morning with hammers and crowbars and lengths of pipe—and Papa—and the reconstruction began.

  Her life from that point on took on the rhythm of hammers and buzz saws and high-speed Italian shouted at full volume. She stopped wincing at the sound of crashing tile. She resisted the urge to peek behind the carefully hung tarps when Pietro and his father left every evening. She learned to be unsurprised when she turned on a tap and nothing came out.

  She moved the furniture out, opened a can of vanilla-colored paint, and started painting the bedrooms. She gave Alyssa a paintbrush, and she painted, too. She pored over the catalogue Mrs. Harrison had sent her, and soon trucks began to arrive. A bed with rails that needed to be assembled. Draperies that needed to be hemmed. Shelving that needed to be installed.

  “Ah, bella signorina,” exclaimed Pietro with passionate dismay as he was leaving one evening. He came into the room that Sara was redecorating for Alyssa. One wall was painted a pale lemon yellow, and so was Alyssa’s face, her hands, and her shoes. Sara climbed down from the stepladder, wiping her hands on her smock.

  “You work so hard to make pretty the walls of the little one,” he said sadly. “Look at your hands! Look at the tiredness in your eyes!” And suddenly his face cleared. “I will send you a painter of walls!” he decided. “Yes, that is it. My cousin Marco, he is an artiste par excellence and he will come and make walls for the little one. But not today. Today he is in Venezia, making love to his beautiful lady. Maybe next week, no? Or the week after. So you will put down the paintbrush now and come with me. The WC, she is finito!”

  His
last words wiped out everything he had said before. Sara scooped up Alyssa, yellow paint and all, and hurried after Pietro.

  The toilet she had asked them to replace was in the main corridor, in between the room that she was occupying and the room that she hoped soon to have ready for Alyssa. It had been an awkward, cumbersome affair, with miles of black-and-white tile, a tiny lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, and a shower, sans doors, smack in the middle of the room. The dingy, nonfunctioning toilet was in a tiny closet with a hook-and-latch closure in the corner of the room.

  Signor Contandino stood erect and solemn-faced before the tarp-draped entrance to the bathroom. As Sara approached, he ripped aside the tarp and gestured her, with a dramatic sweep of his arm, to enter.

  The black-and-white tile had been polished to a blinding sheen. The lavatory, once a pedestrian affair with rusted parts, had been upgraded to a sleek marble slab with a fountainhead faucet and cherub-ornamented handles. And, while one still had to walk through the shower in the middle of the room to reach it, the toilet was a dramatic fixture on an elevated platform on the other side, sleek and oval and accompanied by a matching bidet, in brilliant red. And even as Sara, wide-eyed, drew in a breath of appreciation, Pietro crossed the room, pushed a button, and demonstrated the truly magnificent flushing power of the new appliance.

  “Bravo, bravo!” cried Sara, clapping her hands, and Alyssa echoed, bouncing up and down, “Bravo, potty!”

  Pietro, with eyes sparkling, declared, “Come!” He caught her arm and propelled her down the corridor to the next bathroom, which also featured a sleek red oval fully flushing toilet, and the next, and finally into the apartment suite with its dust-covered furniture . . . but with bathrooms fully restored, polished, and functioning with red toilets that flushed perfectly and matching bidets that did precisely what bidets were supposed to do.

  By this time Sara had set Alyssa on the floor, overcome with wonder “Pietro . . . Signor Contandino . . . it’s more than I asked for, more than I expected . . . C’est magnifico! Grazie! Grazie!” She turned to Pietro, her eyes wide with wonder. “You got the water running in this part of the castle! Does the kitchen work, too?”