The Butler

by Danielle Steel

  On Saturday, they went to the flea market together, and walked for hours poking through shops and stalls in the various markets that were a jumble of junk and some beautiful objects all thrown in together. All of it was negotiable. She found a very handsome coffee table, in good condition, two more vintage leather chairs that would look well with the first ones she’d bought at auction, and two paintings she loved. One for the bedroom, and a good-sized one for the living room. Joachim liked them too, and complimented her on her choices.

  “I think even my mother would love them,” he said when they stopped for a cup of coffee. They had walked for miles.

  “Does she enjoy art?” Olivia responded.

  “She’s an art expert,” he said quietly. “And my stepfather was an expert at the Louvre. He did the authentication of all their new acquisitions. That’s how they met. My mother was a curator at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. He got her a job at the Louvre when she first got here after they married. And then she went to work for a different organization. They work in conjunction with the Louvre at times. She researches stolen paintings to track down the rightful owners.”

  “How interesting. That must be fascinating.”

  “It is, and heartbreaking sometimes. She works on finding the art that was stolen by the Nazis and returns it to the heirs of the original owners, whenever possible.” He was even more proud of her now that he knew why she did it. Olivia looked at him for a moment over their coffee, sitting on two chairs outside one of the flea market stalls.

  “If it’s not rude to ask, how did you end up a butler?”

  “By accident. I finished high school when we came from Argentina. I got my baccalauréat degree and went to the Sorbonne. I was studying art and literature, and feeling lost. I have a brother I was very close to, and he stayed in Argentina. Nothing made sense or was fun without him, so I dropped out of school and did odd jobs for a while. I saw an ad for a butler school in London and signed up for six months on a lark. And much to my surprise, I liked it and found my calling. I could use a variety of skills and learned many new ones. Being a butler is both hands-on and a managerial job. I like the combination. It requires precision and perfectionism, which is a constant challenge. And resourcefulness. I took a job with an earl, who lost everything a year later, and then I got the job with the Marquess of Cheshire. I thought I’d stay a year or two and go back to Paris. Fast-forward the film, sixteen years later, I’d wound up as the head butler within a few years and stayed until they both died. It became addictive. I liked my job, and I loved them. I never saw the time fly by. And now here I am, starting over, or I will be when I go back. I would have stayed if they hadn’t died, and the houses weren’t up for sale. It won’t be easy to start again,” he said with a wistful look. “This is a nice change of pace in the meantime. I’m enjoying it,” he said, and she nodded.

  “I am too. It’s been a good week. I’m in the same boat you are. I’m not quite sure what I’m going back to when I go back to work. I put my heart and soul into my decorating magazine for ten years, all for nothing. I don’t know whether to go to work for someone else, another magazine, or start something of my own again. It was a beautiful magazine, but this isn’t a good time for magazines. The Internet is putting them out of business. Mine was too high-quality and too elitist.”

  “I’m not so sure it’s a good time for butlers either. The great houses are all being sold to people who don’t know how to run them or what a butler is, and don’t want one, or they’re being run as commercial ventures, for tourists or conventions, or rented out for TV shows. There are only a handful of great houses left, and no one gives those jobs up. They stay there until they keel over. I slowly became obsolete while I was working for the Cheshires. It’s a very special kind of life. It doesn’t suit most people. And you give up your personal life to do it. The two aren’t really compatible.”

  “A lot of jobs are like that,” she said thoughtfully. “I gave up my personal life for work too. I thought it was worth it. Now I wonder. One day you wake up, years have gone by, and you’re alone. And if the business fails, then what do you have? Not much.” Or nothing at all, in her case. That was how she felt now.

  “It sounds like you did the right thing coming here and doing something different for a while.” She nodded agreement.

  “And in a year, then what? I have absolutely no idea what I’ll do after this,” she said seriously.

  “You’ll find something. Or it will find you. My mother is very philosophical about those things. She’s had a remarkable life. She fell into the job she has now, and loves it. She’s been doing it for twenty-five years, and she works as hard at eighty-one as she did at forty or fifty. I think caring about it as much as she does keeps her young. I loved my job too.”

  “So did I.” She smiled at him as they both stood up, ready to explore the antiques stalls again. “I try to think of it as chapters in my life. Or maybe it’s a trilogy of some kind. A ten-year chapter is now over. Now I’ll just have to see what the chapters are about in future. I agree with your mother. It will find you.”

  “And in the meantime, thank you for the job, Ms. White. I mean that sincerely. I was driving my mother crazy, reorganizing her closets. She’s grateful to you.” Olivia laughed as they walked into the next stall, where she found another painting. It was a graceful ballerina that looked like a Degas, and she bought it for her bedroom. It made her think of the work his mother did, which touched her profoundly.

  She asked him about his brother in Argentina on the drive back to the city. “Did you see your brother on your recent trip to Buenos Aires?”

  He took a long time to answer. He kept his eyes on the road when he did. “I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years,” he said in an even tone, and she didn’t press him about it. She could see that it was a painful subject. He was a man of many facets and contradictions. His choice of working as a butler seemed like an odd one, but he seemed to like it. And he was good at what he did. He was fast, bright, resourceful, and efficient, and he seemed to have a wealth of knowledge on many subjects. She wondered what the story was with his brother but didn’t ask him. It was clearly off-limits, and she had no desire to pry. She had her own taboo subjects and painful family secrets.

  They rode back to Paris in comfortable silence, with her new acquisitions in the van. They dropped them off at the new apartment on the way back to the quai Voltaire.

  “Do you have enough food for tonight?” he asked her, and she smiled and said she did.

  “Thank you for a fun afternoon, and for giving up your Saturday. Have a nice day off tomorrow,” she said, and closed the door of the van. She waved as he drove away, and went upstairs to make more lists of things she needed for the apartment. They were installing her new kitchen on Monday. They were moving ahead at full speed. She was well aware that she couldn’t have done it without Joachim. Their respective needs had dovetailed nicely. She was filling a gap for him, and he was helping her set up her new life in Paris. The timing for each of them was perfect, and just what they needed. In a way, it was almost too good to be true. And very exciting to have a beautiful new apartment in Paris.

  * * *

  —

  Olivia met Joachim at the new apartment on Monday. He was overseeing the installation of the Ikea kitchen. The workmen were making an appalling mess, but they seemed to know what they were doing. They were leaving fingerprints everywhere, and she cringed when she saw the chaos in the kitchen.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be perfect when they’re finished. Their installers are magicians,” he reassured her. It was too soon to tell, and she was interviewing three cleaning women that morning. Two of them were very young, and only had short-term references. The third one was slower, older, but had worked for twenty years for the same woman who had recently died. So she had no reference, but she was immaculate and Olivia liked her. She looked t
rustworthy, and as though she knew her job. She was fifty years old and had worked for the Plaza Athénée before her long-term job. Olivia’s instincts told her she was the right one, and she hired her, to start immediately. They had managed with Alphonsine’s minimal English and Olivia showing her what needed to be done. And the agency had provided translations of her references. Olivia wanted the whole apartment scrubbed before she moved in. Alphonsine promised to start the next day. Olivia told Joachim over lunch that she had hired her.

  “You didn’t like the younger ones?” he questioned her.

  “Neither of them has stayed in a job longer than six months and that didn’t look good to me. Alphonsine worked for twenty years for the same woman. She just died so she has no reference, but she looked spotless and seemed serious.” He nodded.

  By the end of the day, the kitchen was fully installed, and looked perfect other than the mess everywhere, which the new maid could deal with the next day. Joachim was very pleased with the kitchen installation, and Olivia was happy with it too, and liked the way it looked. The whole kitchen was lacquered white.

  He drove her back to the seventh arrondissement, and then left for the night. He said he had promised to make dinner for his mother.

  “She doesn’t eat well if she doesn’t have anyone to eat with. She says it bores her.”

  “My mother was that way too, and once her mind started slipping, she couldn’t remember if she had eaten or not. I had to have nurses for her eventually. Losing your mind is a terrible thing.” Olivia had noticed that he was cool with her when they met again on Monday. She wondered if her mention of his brother had made him retreat. She had inadvertently touched a nerve, but by the end of the day he had warmed up again.

  “What did your mother do before that?” he asked her.

  “She was a book editor. Eventually, she only edited one very famous author.” She looked out the window, thinking about George, and their cowardice at not telling her the truth before he died so she could speak to him about it, and his selfishness in taking over her mother’s life, stealing her youth, and feeding her addiction to him. She didn’t mention any of it to Joachim. He could sense there was more to the story. They each had their secrets. But they weren’t friends, or just a man and a woman. She was his employer, so different rules applied, and there were only certain questions one could ask. He had very careful boundaries, and never crossed them.

  * * *

  —

  For the rest of the week, deliveries arrived. Her new bed came, they sent the old one to the owner’s storage and threw away the old mattress. Alphonsine cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen until they shone. She scrubbed the floors after the deliveries and used a special leather cream on the four vintage chairs. The new Ikea dining chairs improved the dining room, and made the existing table look better. And the coffee table from the flea market looked handsome in the living room. The Ikea cupboards they’d bought turned the second bedroom into an efficient dressing room and storage space.

  Joachim hung the three new paintings she had bought, and spent a whole day installing light fixtures. He was good with his hands and was undaunted by anything they needed to do. And Olivia was thinking about shipping the few pieces she’d kept of her mother’s furniture to Paris from the storage facility where she had sent them. She didn’t need them in New York, and she thought they’d look well in the new apartment. She gave Joachim the relevant information to research the shipping. There was nothing he couldn’t do.

  Within two weeks the apartment was well set up, and livable. She began packing what she had at the apartment on the quai Voltaire, and Joachim moved it all to the new place, and she gave up the temporary apartment a week early.

  She bought fresh flowers and set them around the new apartment and unpacked all her things. Joachim asked her if she wanted a safe, and she hadn’t thought of it, and told him it was a good idea. He arranged to have one installed, but they were booked solid for two weeks. They said there had been a number of burglaries in the sixteenth recently, and the demand for home safes had increased. Olivia didn’t own any major jewelry, just a few pieces that had been her mother’s, and she was going to use the safe for them, and whatever documents she brought with her.

  She’d been sleeping at the new apartment for a week when she decided to get out of her work clothes and put on a decent outfit for a change. She put on black slacks, a white cashmere sweater, and high heels. Joachim noticed it but didn’t comment. It wasn’t his place. She was a strikingly pretty woman, and close to his age, which made it all the more inappropriate for him to remark on her looks. He knew his place and he always respected the limits. He saw her walk into her bedroom and come back with a strange look on her face, as though puzzled by something.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked her in a businesslike tone. It was his job to notice what went on around him, and he had a sharp eye and a keen awareness of people’s moods and reactions. He could see that Olivia was upset about something.

  She had gone into her bedroom to put on a pair of pearl earrings and the diamond band her mother had worn as her pseudo wedding ring from George. It was the first time Olivia had wanted to wear it, but when she opened the small jewel case where she’d been keeping them, it was empty, and neither the ring nor the earrings were there. She’d been keeping the jewel case in her underwear drawer until the installation of the safe. She opened the case several times, as though her mother’s jewelry would materialize, and it didn’t. Alphonsine was busy scrubbing the bathroom, and she didn’t want to accuse her of anything. There had been many workmen in the house, and deliveries, and she hadn’t checked the jewel box since she’d moved. If someone had stolen her mother’s jewelry, she had no idea who it could be, and she didn’t want to accuse anyone unfairly.

  She walked out to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. Joachim walked in, and looked at her closely. She seemed near tears and looked distracted.

  “I don’t want to pry,” he said quietly, “but I get the feeling something’s wrong. Is it anything I can help you with?” She didn’t answer at first, not sure what to say. And if they’d been stolen, he could have done it too. He was at the apartment more than anyone else. She didn’t think he was a thief, but she didn’t really know him. They were all strangers to her. And for all she knew, he could have written his glowing reference from the new Marquess of Cheshire himself. Who knew if it was real? She had never called to check his references. She trusted him, perhaps wrongly so.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said to him, and left the kitchen, and he noticed that Alphonsine had emerged from the bathroom and was watching her closely too. He had seen incidents like it before, and could guess what had happened, or thought he could.

  At the end of the afternoon, he spoke to Olivia again. “Are you missing something?” he asked her. She hesitated and then shook her head. How did he know? Except if he had taken the jewelry.

  “No, it’s fine. My drawers are still a mess since the move.” But he already knew her better than that and was trained to learn his employers’ habits. Nothing she touched was ever a mess. She was an extremely tidy person, and a creature of habit. She always put things back in the same place. Too trusting perhaps, but definitely not messy.

  He nodded, and didn’t insist, but she didn’t speak to him again before he left. He could see distrust in her eyes when she said good night.

  Olivia suddenly felt surrounded by strangers and people she didn’t know if she could trust. There was no doubt in her mind now. Someone had taken her mother’s jewelry. A workman, a delivery person, maybe Joachim, although she hated to think that. She liked him and had trusted him implicitly. Alphonsine didn’t seem like a likely candidate. She looked like an honest woman, and a sweet little grandmother. Olivia would have sworn it wasn’t her.

  She had a sleepless night over it, and felt terrible. Her mother had loved her pearl earrings and
wore them almost every day, and the ring from George was her most treasured possession. George had rather sarcastically called it her “unwedding ring” but her mother had loved it. Olivia had taken it off her finger before they buried her. And now her mother’s treasures were gone, forever. She should have put them in a vault in the bank, but she had been careless and too trusting.

  She looked tense and unhappy the next morning when Joachim came to work. He had spoken to his mother about it the night before, disturbed by the expression on his new employer’s face. He had been through it before, but they were in such close quarters and she seemed so alone in the world that it pained him for her.

  “She thinks I stole something from her,” he told his mother over their dinner in the kitchen.

  “How do you know? Did she accuse you of it?”

  “She didn’t have to. I’ve seen that expression before. She looked panicked, and she didn’t look me in the eye when I left.”

  His mother looked worried. She didn’t want it to be an unpleasant experience for him, or end badly. “Is it something of great value?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe not. But it’s something she cares about deeply. She was almost in tears. And she looked as though she suddenly couldn’t trust anyone. She’s among strangers in a foreign country. I feel sad for her.”

  “I remember when Francois’s cleaning woman took a gold locket I had with pictures of you and Javier in it, as babies. It disappeared right after we arrived from Buenos Aires. I looked everywhere and it didn’t turn up.”

  “Did it ever?” Joachim asked, worried.

  “Francois made a huge fuss and threatened to call the police. And he very cleverly offered a huge reward to the person who would find it. It turned up the next day, mysteriously under a chair where I had looked, and the maid claimed the reward. We fired her almost immediately. But I got the locket back.” Joachim nodded. He had done similar things in the Cheshires’ homes with the staff, usually with good results, but not always. He just hoped he could bring about a good outcome for Olivia. He hated seeing her so unhappy and worried. And he didn’t want her thinking it was him.