Jewels (49 page)

Phillip had children of his own, a boy of five and a girl of three, Alexander and Christine, but Sarah admitted only to Emanuelle that they were so much like Cecily, they were of very little interest to her. They were sweet, but very wan and pale, and they were not very exciting, or very endearing. They were distant and shy, even with Sarah. Sarah brought Xavier to play with them at Whitfield sometimes, but he was far more enterprising than they were, and always got into too much mischief, and it was obvious eventually that Phillip wasn’t anxious to have him.

In fact, Phillip wasn’t fond of any of his brothers or his sister, nor was he interested in them, except Julian, whom Sarah sometimes feared Phillip hated.

He was unreasonably jealous of him, so much so that she worried that with Julian entering the business, Phillip might do something to hurt him. She suspected that Emanuelle feared it, too, and she had already urged her to watch him. Phillip had once been her friend, her charge when she was young and her life had been less sophisticated than it was now, and in some ways she knew him even better than Sarah. She knew what viciousness he was capable of, what slights he feared, and what revenge he wrought when he thought someone had crossed him. In fact, it amazed Emanuelle that after all these years, Phillip was still getting on with Nigel. It was an unusual union between them, a marriage of convenience of sorts, but it was very obviously still working.

But Phillip hated how much Julian was loved, by his family, by his friends, even by his women. He took out the most attractive gills in town, they were always beautiful and fun and glamorous, and they adored him. Even before Phillip was married the women he took out were always a little bit sleazy. And Emanuelle knew he was still attracted to that kind of woman when his wife wasn’t around. She had seen him in Paris with one of them once, and he had pretended she was his secretary and they were there on business. They were staying at the Plaza Athénée, and he borrowed some of their flashiest jewelry to let her wear for a few days, and he had asked Emanuelle if she would be good enough not to tell his mother. But the jewelry looked pale on her, she looked tired and used, and the ridiculously short clothes she wore were not even stylish. She just looked cheap, and Phillip didn’t seem to notice. Sarah was sorry for him. It was obvious to her by then that he wasn’t happy in his marriage.

But Phillip was not missed at Julian’s graduation.

“So, my friend,” Emanuelle asked Julian as they all left the Sorbonne, “how soon do you begin work? Tomorrow,
n’est-ce pas
?” He knew she was teasing, because she was coming to the party his mother was giving for him that night at the château, and all his friends were going to be there.

The boys were staying in the stables and the girls were sleeping in the main house and the cottage, and the additional guests were staying in local hotels. They were expecting about three hundred people. After the party, he was going to the Riviera for a few days, but he had promised his mother he would go to work on Monday.

“Monday, I promise.” He looked at Emanuelle with huge eyes that had already melted many hearts. He looked so much like his father. “I swear …” He held up a hand officially, and Emanuelle laughed. It would be fun to have him at Whitfield’s. He was so handsome, women would buy anything from him. She just hoped he didn’t buy for them. He was incredibly generous, as William had been, and terribly kindhearted.

Sarah had offered him her Paris flat, until he could find his own, and he was looking forward to staying there. She had just given him an Alfa Romeo as a graduation present, which would surely impress the girls. He offered to drive Emanuelle to the château in it that day, after they had lunch at the Relais at the Plaza, but she had promised to go with Sarah.

Isabelle rode down to the château with him instead, and he teased her about her long legs and her short skirts, as she piled into the car, looking more like twenty-five than sixteen.

And as Julian often said about her, she was trouble. She flirted with all his friends, and had gone out with several of them. He was always amazed that his mother didn’t take a stronger position with her. But ever since his father had died, she was softer with all of them. It was almost as though she didn’t have the strength or the desire to fight them. Julian thought she let Xavier run wild, too, but all he ever did was set firecrackers off in the stables and frighten the horses, or chase the farm animals into the vineyards. Isabelle’s misdeeds were far more discreet, and a lot more dangerous, if what his friend Jean-François said was true. She had driven him to a frenzy recently on a ski weekend in St Moritz, and then she had slammed the door in his face, a fact for which Julian was grateful, but he also knew that soon she wouldn’t be slamming doors, she would be leaving them open.

“So,” he said, as they drove south on Route 20, toward Orléans. “What’s new with you, any new boyfriends?”

“No one special.” She sounded very cool, which was unusual for her. Normally, she loved to brag to him about her latest conquests. But she was more secretive these days, and she was getting prettier by the hour. She looked like their mother, but in a more sultry, smoky way. Everything about her suggested passion and immediate gratification. And her underlying innocence only served to make the invitation more tempting.

“How’s school?” She was still going to school in La Marolle, which he thought was a mistake. He thought she should go away to school, perhaps to a convent. At least he had been smart enough to be discreet when he was her age; he looked all innocence, and pretended to play tennis after school, while he was actually having an affair with one of his teachers. No one had ever discovered them, but eventually she had gotten serious, and she had threatened to commit suicide when he finally left her, which really upset him. And after that it was the mother of one of his friends, but that had been complicated, too, and after that, he realized it was easier chasing virgins than dealing with the complications of older women. But they still intrigued him anyway. He was totally omnivorous when it came to women. He adored them all, old, young, beautiful, simple, intelligent, and sometimes even ugly. Isabelle accused him of having no taste, and his friends said. He was always horny, which was true, but no great sin as far as Julian was concerned. He was, and happy to oblige at any moment.

“School is stupid and boring;” Isabelle answered him, looking petulant, “but it’s over for the summer, thank God.” And she was furious they weren’t going anywhere till August. Her mother had promised her a trip to Capri, but she wanted to stay at the château until then. She had things to see about there, alterations they wanted to make on the Paris store, and repairs that needed to be made on the farm and the vineyards.

“It’s so boring-being here,” she complained, lighting a cigarette, taking a few puffs and tossing it out the window. He didn’t think she really smoked, she was just trying to impress him.

“I used to love it at your age. There’s so much to do, and Mother always lets you have friends to stay.”

“Not boys.” She glowered at him. She adored him, but sometimes he didn’t understand anything, especially lately.

“Funny,” he teased her mercilessly, “she always let me have boys over.”

“Very funny.”

“Thank you. Well, at least it won’t be boring tonight, my dear. But you’d better behave yourself, or I’ll spank you.”

“Thanks a lot.” She closed her eyes and slid down in the seat of his Alfa Romeo. “I like your car, by the way.” She smiled at him. Sometimes she really liked him.

“So do I. It was nice of Mother to do that.”

“Yeah, she’ll probably make me wait till I’m ninety.” Isabelle thought her mother was unreasonable with her. But anyone who stood in the way of what she wanted, in her eyes, was a monster.

“Maybe you’ll have passed your driver’s license by then.”

“Oh, shut up.” There was a joke in the family about what a terrible driver she was. She had already damaged two of the old junk heaps at the château, and she claimed it was because they were so impossible to drive, and it had nothing to do with her driving. But Julian knew better, and he wouldn’t have let her touch the steering wheel on his precious Alfa Romeo.

They reached the château long before his guests, and Julian went for a quick swim, and then went to see if he could help his mother. She had hired a local caterer and there were long buffet tables everywhere, several bars, and a canopy over an enormous dance floor. There were two bands, a local one, and a big fancy one from Paris. Julian was thrilled and touched that his mother was giving him such a fabulous party.

“Thank you, Maman,” he said, and put an arm around her, still wet from his swim. He stood tall and handsome beside her, dripping wet in his swim trunks. Emanuelle was standing next to her, and she pretended to swoon when she saw him.

“Cover yourself, my dear. I’m not at all sure I can handle having you at the office.” And neither would anyone else. She made a mental note to watch her girls. She wasn’t at all sure that Julian wouldn’t take them off to his apartment after lunch. She knew he had a bit of a naughty reputation. “We’re going to have to do something very imaginative at work to make you look ugly.” But the truth was that it couldn’t be done, he oozed charm and sex appeal. As restrained and repressed as his brother was, Julian was everything he wasn’t.

“You should get dressed before your guests arrive.” His mother smiled at him.

“Or perhaps not,” Emanuelle whispered. She always enjoyed an attractive body and enjoyed teasing him a little bit. It was harmless after all, she was an old friend, and he was just a child to her. She had just turned fifty.

Julian was back downstairs long before the guests, having spent half ah hour with Xavier while he was getting dressed explaining to him about cowboys in the Wild West. For some reason Xavier was obsessed with Davy Crockett. He was fascinated by American things, and had told someone in school that he was really from New York, and only in France for a year while his parents did business.

“Well, my mother is!” He had defended himself afterwards. He wanted to be American more than anything. Having never known his father, and seeing very little of Phillip these days, he seemed to feel no kinship whatsoever with the British. And while Julian was clearly French, Xavier found it far more exciting to pretend he was from New York, or Chicago, or even California. And he talked constantly about his Aunt Jane and the cousins he didn’t even know, which amused Sarah. She often spoke English to him, and he spoke it very well, as did Julian, but nonetheless with a French accent. Julian’s English was better than his, but still one could tell that he was French, unlike Phillip, who sounded so relentlessly British. And Isabelle didn’t care where she was from, as long as it was somewhere far removed from all her relations. She wanted to be separate from all of them, so she could do exactly what she wanted.

“I want you to be a good boy tonight,” Julian warned Xavier as he went to join his friends. “No wild tricks, no getting hurt. I want to have fun at my party. Why don’t you go watch TV?”

“I can’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t have one.”

“You can watch the one in my room.” Julian smiled at him, impossible as he was, he really loved him. Julian had been like a father to him, and he really enjoyed being with him. “I think there’s a soccer game on.”

“Great!” He shouted as he headed back to his brother’s room, humming Davy Crockett.

Julian was still smiling to himself when he ran into Isabelle on the stairs. She was wearing a white, almost see-through dress that barely reached her crotch and covered her stomach with chain mail.

“Cardin?” he asked, trying to sound cool.

“Courrèges,” she corrected, looking arch and far more dangerous than she knew. She was walking trouble.

“I’m learning.”

But so was Sarah. When she saw her, she sent her back upstairs to put something else on. And Isabelle slammed every door in the house on the way, as Emanuelle watched her, and Sarah sighed and helped herself to a glass of champagne.

“That child is going to kill me. And if she doesn’t, Xavier will.”

“You said that about the others too,” Emanuelle reminded her.

“I did not,” Sarah corrected. “Phillip disappointed me because he was so distant and so cool, and Julian worried me because he slept with the mothers of all his friends and thought I didn’t know. But Isabelle is an entirely different creature. She refuses to be controlled, or to behave herself or listen to reason.” Emanuelle couldn’t disagree with her. She would have hated to be the girl’s mother. Seeing Isabelle always made her grateful she had never had children. Xavier was another story though, he was impossible but so warm and cuddly that you couldn’t resist him. He was like Julian, but freer and more adventuresome. They were an interesting bunch, the Whitfield crew. And none of them saw Isabelle emerge again in a zebra-striped leotard and a white leather skirt that was even worse than what she’d worn the first time. But fortunately for her, this time Sarah didn’t see her.

“Having fun?” Sarah asked Julian hours later when she saw him. He looked a little drunk, but she knew no harm would come to him. No one was driving anywhere, and he had worked so hard to graduate from the Sorbonne. He deserved it.

“Maman, you’re terrific! This is the best party I’ve ever been to.” He looked happy and dishevelled and hot. He’d been dancing for hours with two girls who were causing him to make an impossible decision. It was an evening filled with blissful dilemmas.

And for Isabelle too. She was stretched full-length in the bushes near the stables with a boy she had met that night. She knew he was a friend of Julian’s and she couldn’t remember his name. But he was the best kisser she had ever met, and he had just told her he loved her.

Eventually, one of the servants saw her there, and whispered something discreetly to the duchess, who suddenly appeared miraculously on the path to the stables, with Emanuelle, pretending to stroll along and enjoy a casual conversation. And when Isabelle heard her, she scurried away and the two women looked at each other and laughed, feeling both old and young at the same time. In August, Sarah was going to be fifty-six, although she didn’t look it.