The Diamond Waterfall (21 page)

In late February she was sent to Harrogate for three weeks. It was suggested Mrs. Anstruther go with her, but Alice refused. Then, surprising Lily:
“You
could come instead, I suppose,” she said ungraciously. Lily was moved. In the end, though, a cousin on her mother's side was sent.

Alice came back as thin as ever, and with as an extra a streaming cold and cough. Both Lily and Robert grew very concerned. Dr. Sowerby said he could not rule out the possibility of tuberculosis. Another change of air perhaps? But it was no good to speak of Filey and the seaside since the bracing air of Harrogate had not helped. Four to six weeks in a warm climate, Dr. Sowerby suggested. The South of France, for instance.

Lily, worried as she was about her stepdaughter, could not help thinking, later that same day,
If I take Alice, then perhaps—Val?
She would take great care of the poor child, do everything to make her better, yet at the same time … Oh, but it would be so wonderful. And it would appear quite natural. I am wicked, selfish, she thought, and will be punished—but not before I've had,
we
have had, the meeting we have so longed for.

Her hand trembling with haste, she wrote, “We are to be at the Hotel Colony, Beaulieu—concoct what alibi you can—are you at all known on the Riviera? Arrange whatever you like—get yourself introduced. After that, something, anything, will be possible.” She sealed the inner envelope with their joint seal; on the outer envelope, the name of Madame Billaud.

The mimosa was out. In the early morning the sun came through the slats of the jalousies. A spell of cold weather, but the sky was blue, the sea jeweled. They sat on the terrace of a cafe where a coke brazier glowed. Clean and light. Another world and already Lily thought it was doing Alice a little good. She had enjoyed the day in Paris and then in the train
de grande luxe
going to the Riviera had slept, she said, all night.

Lily had not slept, nor could she the following nights. She felt certain Alice must notice something, but it seemed not.

She tried, now that Alice was a little more receptive, to give her some of the affection she had always wanted to show her. Perhaps now, she would be allowed? She began to long that Alice might confide in her, that they might miraculously—for it would have to be a miracle—become friends.

As they walked or drove along the promenade, among the shaggy palm trunks, or sat quietly over their meals, she spoke of her own childhood: growing up in Leeds, Dad, Daisy, Ethel. The death of Harry. Alice, although she said nothing,
seemed
to be interested.

On the sixth day Val walked across the foyer of the Hotel Colony, to where they were taking afternoon tea.

She thought that she might die. A violin trio were playing, badly, the
waltz from
La Belle Hélène.
Alice had been laughing with her at the frequent excruciating wrong notes.

“Lady Firth? Forgive me. You don't know me, madame. I've heard that you're staying here from a mutual friend. May I present myself? Valentin …”

She didn't know what to do, how to behave. She wanted to laugh, with relief, with wild happiness.
He is here.

“Please excuse me, Monsieur Oleancu. I laugh—we've been laughing at the trio. Look—no, the small one with the long moustaches, it's very wicked and ill-mannered but my stepdaughter and I …”

Introductions to Alice, explanations: he was Romanian and had been asked by Madame Billaud of Paris to look out for them. And then had seen their name on the Beaulieu visitors list. That he should happen to have arrived today at the
same
hotel.

He sat with them. More tea was ordered. Yes, he would love some
gâteau
and had an enormous appetite. This coincidence was delightful and he hoped, really hoped, that since he was here for several weeks they would perhaps allow him to take them about? Did they know Mentone?

He was the same, yet not—heavier perhaps. She tried not to stare, to meet his eyes. How to keep up her acting? Oh the theatricality of it all.

“Your English is so good,” she said. “Really quite remarkable—”

“I was one year at Oxford. Christ Church.” He turned on Alice his beautiful smile. “Miss Firth, do you know Oxford at all?”

She could not wait for the night. She thought that Alice, who was plainly enjoying Valentin's company, would never leave. She could not send her up before ten. And it would be best, would it not, if they all three said their good nights downstairs?

But it was worth it, the wait. She cried, before he came to her room at midnight (Alice safely asleep two floors up). Cried when they made love.

“Oh but my darling Lily, it's not sad, not sad, it's so
happy.
Valentin has been so clever and we have three weeks, four weeks.”

“But I
am
happy, that's why I cry—because I'm so happy and have been so
un
happy—and because it will all end, it has to end all over again.”

“Hush now, hush now.”

“Ah no, but it does.”

“Stop this at once, I stop you like this—and this—and
this
—you see I've not forgotten what you love best of all…. And now this, and this, yes? … Then we lie quiet for just a little while, and you tell me how clever I've been, how very very clever—that I arrange our meeting so
perfectly.”

And so the happy days began. She promised him, herself too, that she would use them one by one. “Each one preciouser,” he said. But it worried her that she deceived Alice. Even more, that Alice might take seriously the
compliments, the attentions shown her by Valentin. He spoke of this to Lily. “I want so much to be natural, not to show for you anything special at all. Perhaps I do it wrong?”

But although Alice showed pleasure in his company, she often appeared removed from it all. She said once when asked playfully for her thoughts, “I am arranging a series of photographs I shall take. When I am home again …” Her appetite alas, was no better. She toyed with
médaillons de boeuf,
cutting a little off the edge and making it last the course through, ordered profiteroles and left them after just a bite of choux pastry.

“She's a sad little girl,” Valentin told Lily. “Even for me, she won't eat.”

Never alone together in the daytime, it was at night, after lovemaking, that they would talk and talk.

“One delicious piece of gossip—Ana—Ana Xenescu, she has had another child, and at almost forty-two! The talk is wild as to who is the father (no it's not me, not at all, and no not even in teasing must you say that), since it is absolutely
known
it cannot be the colonel.”

Gossip. Their love, news from Sinaia, Bucharest, their love again, and, of course, their daughter.

“You're wicked that you don't bring her here now, to see me—”

“What—and with her nurse, and all other manner of unlikelihoods? We'd be discovered in a trice.”

“My face. Expression of pride that she's so spiffing—
that
would give me away. And also you know, Lily, we are so fortunate that no one of ours, Romanians, that they don't visit here. If I have that fence to jump …”

“You may think yourself a great actor, but shouldn't you congratulate me too? I think I shall go back on the stage after all.”

“But you've other greater gifts, yes? Lily of the Valley. Let me admire, ah come now, let me talk to the smallest
trou
in France, in
all
the world— hold my head—no better still, love me as I talk to it. To think
our
child has come from there.”

Then one evening, her despair again, washing over her. I should be braver. I have been brave before. But this time it is worse, worse.

“Listen, Val, I'm sick, I tremble, I shall never go back to England, never, I shall send for the baby and for Hal and we can … we could … it might be … people have done these wicked things and prospered, have they not? Tell me they have. Tell me we
could. “

Alice thought, I am almost happy. The feeling had grown slowly through the sun-filled spring days. She felt at home in Beaulieu, perhaps because it was smaller than nearby Nice. She loved to sit on her balcony and gaze at the snow peaks, a romantic distant world—then to look down onto the hotel gardens: mimosa, orange trees, stone seats set among the flowering bushes.
Often when the light seemed to her right, she went down and took photographs.

If only Gib—it was his absence made it not quite perfect. About that, Belle Maman had been strangely thoughtful, even suggesting that it might have been nicer for Alice had he been invited too. But since this Valentin had arrived (already, at Belle Maman's direction, she was calling him “Valentin”), it would have been difficult to be bored or unhappy. Their days were so full now: mornings out driving, the three of them. Excursions or walks by the sea. Then in the afternoon, for Alice the prescribed rest, which Belle Maman took also. Tea together, perhaps another outing. Then some evenings to the Casino here or at Nice.

She thought sometimes that she had never seen anyone so beautiful as Valentin. Not handsome, but beautiful. She would say the word over to herself often as she rested in the afternoon.
Beautiful
She would have liked just to gaze at him if that had been possible and not rude. Also, he was fun— making her laugh, including her in every remark, even on two occasions telling her lightly that
she
was beautiful (which I am not, but it is oh so wonderful to be thought so), and soon would be
élégante
too. There must be a dress-buying expedition, he said.

Belle Maman liked him also—that was evident. Hadn't she said to Alice at least twice,
“Wasn't
it the most wonderful chance that someone so delightful should turn up? If you had had only me to amuse you …”

Yes, it was almost happiness. Or—perhaps it was what people called contentment? For she slept well and took exercise and enjoyed herself. She even had some appetite for the delicious meals. She surprised herself by the way she'd been able, for almost a week now, to eat all of what was set before her.

Yet it was not
just
contentment—or why that little frisson of excitement every morning when Belle Maman cried, “Why, here comes our knight, Alice!” And Valentin, kissing their hands, saying, “Another lovely day—how are we to spend it—the three of us?”

“Another lovely day,” Belle Maman said, that Friday morning. “I wonder how we are to spend it without Valentin? We've grown so accustomed … I've written him already a little note about the theater tonight.”

It was their third week. A few days earlier some friends of Valentin's staying at Cagnes had been in touch with him. Yesterday afternoon he had left to see them. They expected him back next day.

How then to pass the morning?

“It is not the same without him—our
friend, “
Alice said. And Belle Maman, understanding perfectly (perhaps she had the same feeling of dullness?), said that they might take an expedition to buy Alice a hat? There were
some lovely new models in the windows of Mireille's. And then some hot chocolate, perhaps, at their favorite cafe?

Yes, yes. That would do well enough. They were standing in the foyer about to call a cab when Belle Maman, looking in her reticule, found that she had left her notebook upstairs.

“I don't care to be without it. It's always then one is certain to need it—a nuisance.”

“I can hurry and fetch it.” She offered willingly. More and more she found herself having kind, good thoughts.

Upstairs in Belle Maman's sitting room she found it exactly where she had been told: little ivory pad with its worked-gold pencil. She glanced around. A blue silk peignoir in Japanese style, patterned with iris, flung on the sofa. With her free hand, she stroked the silk. The whole room and probably the bedroom next door had taken on a look of Belle Maman. She thought that it might be interesting to photograph it.

She rearranged the peignoir, so that it looked more careless. The desk was not quite tidy—a letter in Papa's handwriting lay open on the blotter. She read the first few sentences but found in them only the news that she too had received. Looking then at the blotter, its white paper scored with blue, here and there a blob, she wondered idly what Belle Maman had written.

I shouldn't, she thought, hurriedly holding it up to the glass. And then—oh and then, as word after word yielded its mirror image—she said out loud, “Ah,
no …”

What was all this? This talk of
love,
and
Valentin?
Her hand holding up the blotter trembled. It could not be—Belle Maman could not have
fallen in love.
So soon—it wasn't possible, and also wrong, and horrible, horrible, because she was married to
Papa.

“… even this one night apart … the terrible longing … your body, the velvet touch … but it's
you
who are velvet … how am I to live after …”

She pushed it back on the desk. Her lips felt stiff, almost numb. Soon, very soon, the room would be cleaned, the blotting paper replaced, the hateful words removed. But not from her mind. They will never, never go, she thought, hurrying now down the corridor, shaking a little, wishing, wishing, wishing that she could turn back the clock five minutes, three minutes even—
to be as I was before. Not to know.

“Why, Alice dear, you're quite out of breath. Was it difficult to find? Not where I said?”

Such a smile. Charming everyone,
seeming
kind and nearly, oh so nearly deceiving me. Going out to the carriage now, wearing a costume of creamy white cloth showing off her beautiful (horrible) figure and small waist. The fashionable tricorne hat. Oh, but she is hateful.

And so was that dreadful morning—that was to have been so pleasant, such fun, so easy.