Secrets of Paris (39 page)

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Lydie,” Kelly said sternly, the same tone Lydie had heard her use months ago, when she had told Lydie the story of crossing the border in the trunk of a car.

But Lydie felt worse than sorry for her. She believed she had brought Kelly to this point in her life, where dreams came to nothing. She felt intense sorrow. What’s happening to me? she wondered, panicked, as if the feeling came from an outside force instead of circumstances of the night.

She turned to Kelly, who stared stonily into the distance. Kelly, who had represented hope to Lydie, had none of her own left. Again Lydie thought of the young Fallons, Julia and Neil, leaving Rosslare Harbor, and she knew she had Kelly to thank for making it possible to imagine her parents as hopeful people starting off on a long journey. And feeling tears well up in her eyes, Lydie wished all three journeys hadn’t ended in despair.

The open door gave onto the lawn. Lydie had an impulse to run out and not look back. She gazed at the crowd, laughing and brilliant in costumes and jewels. The orchestra struck up a waltz. Hordes of guests poured onto the dance floor. They whirled around, under the canopy of chestnut leaves and flickering candles. She felt hypnotized by emotion, by the movement and music. The area around the dance floor was practically empty, and her eyes took in the few people standing there.

Michael stood apart, whispering to a woman in period dress. Lydie started toward him, but she held herself back. She peered at Michael, in his white jacket, and at the woman, very tiny. The woman wore a wig that might have been lifted from the head of a mannequin in the Louvre and a black velvet dress full of silver thread; Lydie recognized the style as seventeenth-century.

“That’s Anne Dumas,” Lydie said out loud.

“What?” Kelly asked. She started toward Lydie, but Lydie was backing away.

Lydie bumped right into the wall, stood there for a moment staring out the door. She felt her lips moving, and she knew the words they were saying were a form of prayer. She felt a breeze move her full skirt; it might have been the passage of ghosts. Not eighteenth-century ghosts from the château, but recent ghosts. Ghosts of people she had loved, from two years ago and from today, begging Lydie to lay them to rest. The solution came to her like a gift, in a flash.

Trembling, tears running down her cheeks, Lydie lifted Didier’s gun off the rack. She aimed it at Anne and Michael, just the way Patrice had taught her. Her finger was on the trigger. She wedged the stock into her armpit. Her heart pounded like wild horses, and she heard her own breath.

She looked through the scope, saw nothing but darkness. Then she found Michael’s head, so close to Anne’s that both their faces
were in the sight. Magnified, the faces looked angry. They were arguing. But they faded away, and what Lydie saw instead was a cozy Village apartment with family photos on the flowered wallpaper and a young dark-haired woman lying on the bed. Instead of the orchestra, she heard the drone of a television and the voice of a two-year-old girl playing in the next room.

“Lydie …” Kelly said. She touched the back of Lydie’s hand, so softly she might have been afraid of setting something off.

But the shots had been fired more than a year ago. Lydie lowered the gun but continued to hold it as if testing its weight. She found the spot where it was perfectly balanced in the palm of her hand and let it totter there while continuing to watch Michael and Anne with the avidity of a theatergoer waiting for the final curtain. She felt peculiar, as if she had been given permission to feel joyous. She no longer felt sorrowful; she no longer felt the presence of ghosts—neither the young, dark-haired woman nor the handsome, grinning Irishman. Somehow she had laid them to rest. She glanced at Kelly. “Excuse me,” she said. She walked onto the lawn.

“What are you doing here?” Michael heard Lydie say in the calmest voice possible.

He stepped toward her, put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right, Lydie,” he said. “She’s just leaving.”

“Your decorations are superb,” Anne said, dimpling. “And the château, well … if only it were not built in such an unfortunate epoch.”

“What are you doing here?” Lydie repeated, her shoulders tense under Michael’s arm.

“I was invited, of course,” Anne said. She tucked a loose curl under the wig, smoothed the line of her skirt.

Lydie looked up at Michael. Her face was blank, as if any expression was suspended pending Michael’s explanation. “I didn’t invite her,” he said.

Anne laughed, a gentle trill; she whipped an ivory fan from her reticule and held it to her face. She gazed into his eyes, seeming to implore him to take her side. “ ‘I conjure you to speak out on what you know about all this. I cannot have too many friends on this occasion.’ ” She spoke, as she had since Michael had encountered her tonight, in her Madame de Sévigné voice.

“Your name wasn’t on the guest list,” Lydie said. She turned to Michael. “Did you invite her?”

He shook his head no. He knew there had never been so flagrant a case of bad timing in the history of romance. All he wanted was to be with Lydie: court her, watch her in action at the d’Origny ball, dance with her, kiss her on the banks of the Loire. Yet here was Anne, spoiling it all. Not because of his old feelings for her, or even because Lydie seemed devastated by her presence—she didn’t; he felt Lydie press closer to him. But because he didn’t know whether Anne was acting or whether she had lost her mind.

“ ‘She has a charming tone of voice,’ ” Anne said to Michael, tilting her wig toward Lydie. “ ‘She is fair, she is clean …’ ”

“What are you talking about?” Lydie asked.

“I think she’s …” How to say it? “Quoting Madame de Sévigné,” Michael said.

“Where can I find Madame d’Origny?” Anne asked. “I must thank her for her kind invitation.”

“Patrice invited her?” Lydie asked, her head snapping around.

“I don’t know,” replied Michael, who had wondered all along how Anne had learned the ball’s location.

“I want you to leave,” Lydie said to Anne.

“ ‘The wife of
Monsieur
is outraged. A snag has developed in
her marriage. Her tears flow, as from a fountain. Her great boob of a husband is not very loving,’ ” Anne said.

At that, Lydie’s face turned white, and her shoulders tensed. Michael wanted to protect her, to get her away from Anne. He shook Anne’s arm. “Shut up,” he said.

Anne spit on his shoe and walked away.

Lydie and Michael stood together, watching her go. Michael held his breath, waiting for Lydie to say something. He glanced at her, wondering why her expression was suddenly serene.

Patrice interrupted them, clearing her throat. “I guess when you throw a party at a castle, you have to expect an evil fairy. What’s Malificent doing here?”

“Anne Dumas?” Lydie said. “She said you invited her.”

Patrice’s mouth flew open. “I did not! The most I did was
mention
it to her at your opening, Michael. I can’t believe she said I
invited
her—I was keeping her occupied, keeping her out of your hair.”

Lydie reached over to pat Patrice’s cheek. “I know. Of course you didn’t invite her.” But Lydie’s eyes were distracted, as if she were discussing something as unimportant as cake batter.

“What’s wrong with you?” Patrice asked, frowning. She leaned close to Lydie, looking into her eyes like a school nurse checking the pupils of a student suspected of drug use.

Michael felt Lydie swaying, and he held her steady. “Maybe we should leave,” he said.

“But this is her big night,” Patrice said. “She’s the star of the show.”

“I’m fine,” Lydie said. “Have you ever had a moment when you know for sure your life’s about to change?” She backed away from Michael, and from Patrice. She was receding from both of them, from the ball, into some private sphere of her own. “I’m going to
check on Guy,” she said, giving Michael a last glance that held a tiny smile.

“What got into her?” Patrice asked. “She’s my best friend, and I don’t have a clue. I should never have let her wear those rubies.”

“She’ll be okay,” Michael said, fascinated by his own wife. He believed that she had just experienced something so strong and private that she had to get away, off by herself for a while.

“It must have been some shock, coming upon her husband and his mistress, then finding out the only reason she’s here is because I told her,” Patrice said, adjusting her tiara.

“That’s part of it,” Michael agreed, but he didn’t feel worried. He couldn’t take his eyes off Lydie; he watched her walk the ball’s outskirts. She had her mind on more than Patrice telling Anne about the ball; more, even, than catching sight of Michael with Anne. Any chance for the romantic night he had hoped to have with Lydie was gone, but Michael felt excited by whatever the alternative was going to be.

At one point it seemed that everyone was dancing. Lydie felt Michael’s hand on the small of her back, and they whirled through the crowd. The dance floor was a pillow of billowing, full skirts. Lydie hadn’t told him what had happened with the gun; she had had neither the chance nor the inclination. After making sure all the jewelry had been properly photographed, after overseeing the kitchen to make sure the banquet would go off without a hitch, Lydie was loving the chance to dance with her husband.

Every so often Patrice in scarlet waltzed past, and she or Lydie would wave or touch fingers. When the music changed to a cha-cha, Patrice cut in on Michael, leaving Lydie with Didier. But after one dance Michael reclaimed her. His breath on her neck,
the pressure of his hand on her lower back, the way he seemed to be watching her every time she gazed up at him: it all reminded her of falling in love.

Anne Dumas seemed to be everywhere. If Lydie glanced over her left shoulder, Anne was dancing with someone near the orchestra. If Lydie looked straight ahead, there was Anne doing the minuet with Léonce d’Esclimont. Yet Anne never seemed to look in Lydie’s and Michael’s direction. She wore a small intense frown, and Lydie had the wild fantasy that Anne had been plucked from the leaves of French history just for these months, and it required all Anne’s concentration to attend this twentieth-century dance. But Lydie had already dispatched two ghosts tonight; even such a hateful one caused her no great anxiety now.

A gong sounded, then sounded again and again until the orchestra stopped playing. Everyone stopped dancing, to wait for something to happen. Even Lydie, who had planned this moment, felt expectant. Two boxwood hedges formed a path to the kitchen, and she focused on the spot where it joined the dance floor.

Here came the parade of food to the banquet table. People lined up to watch servers bearing roasts, salads,
fruits de mer
, and
gratins
, and they exclaimed as each dish was carried past. Kelly carried a tray of spider crabs, red and spiky. She smiled; she looked almost happy to hear the crowd’s reaction. With rehearsed precision the chef directed each server where to place each dish. When all was in place, he began to carve the capon. Didier stood aside, grinning, next to his masked sister Clothilde.

“It’s fantastic!” Patrice said, running over to Lydie. Marcel helped the guests form a line while Guy took pictures of the untouched food. In this scene the only d’Origny pieces were the carving set, silver and vermeil serving pieces, and sterling silver boars, porcupines, and pheasants decoratively set around the banquet table.

The line began to move. People filled their plates, then went to
find seats at white-clothed tables under the chestnut trees. The food smelled delicious, but Lydie wanted to wait until everyone had been served. Clothilde and Fulbert approached her. “
C
’
est magnifique
,” Clothilde said from behind her gold mask. “
Vraiment
,” said Fulbert. Clothilde leaned forward to kiss Lydie’s cheek, but instead of lips Lydie felt only cool metal. She smiled at the mask, an astonishing disk of thin gold with rays that wavered and made Lydie think of Medusa.

“I’m so glad you like it,” Lydie said. “Did Guy take some pictures of you? That mask is incredible.”