A Place of Storms (19 page)

She began to talk almost at random, filling the silence with words, telling Philippe about snowy days she remembered from her childhood—the giant snowman she and Clare had once made and how angry Uncle Max had been when he found it adorned by his best silk evening scarf. The feeling of tension in the room was almost tangible, and her ripple of chatter and anecdote seemed just to spend itself against it.

And into the middle of it all came Simone, exotically wrapped in a silk kimono hand-embroidered with great pale flowers, artistically hiding a yawn behind one manicured hand and apologising with a smile for her lateness. It was too much to hope that she would not notice the atmosphere in the room, and equally useless, Andrea discovered helplessly, to hope that she would refrain from comment.

'
Qu'est-ce qui se passe
?' Simone bit delicately into a
croissant
, her intent gaze travelling from Philippe's flushed face to his uncle's coldly saturnine expression. The little boy's colour became even deeper and he hung his head, reducing the
croissant
on his plate to a pile of crumbs with quick, nervous movements of his fingers.

'
Oh
,
mon dieu
!' Simone clapped her fingers to her lips. 'Oh, Blaise, I'm so sorry. He's said something, hasn't he— about your face? Philippe,
mon petit
, that was not kind. I warned you that you must learn to hide your feelings…'

'Let it rest.' Blaise's voice crackled with ice. 'The child should not be blamed. Why should he succeed where his elders fail?'

But Simone
did
not take the hint. She turned back to Philippe and began to direct a flow of gentle remonstrance towards him. Oh God, Andrea thought despairingly, why doesn't she shut up? Can't she see she's just making everything worse?

It did not altogether surprise her that after a few minutes, Blaise pushed back his chair and strode out of the room, banging the door behind him.

Simone sank back into her chair with an exaggerated sigh. 'What a disaster,' she remarked to the room at large. 'One had hoped that by this time Blaise would have accustomed himself to his affliction.'

'If you thought that, I wonder you found it neccessary to warn Philippe about it in advance.' Andrea found she was shaking with temper inside, but she managed to keep her voice equable.

Simone lifted her eyebrows. 'But I had to say something,' she pointed out. 'Philippe is in a highly nervous state. If I had not prepared him, he might have suffered a complete
crise
. It is not pretty to see, you admit—Blaise's face. When one remembers how he was before…'

'But I don't,' Andrea pointed out, then realised her mistake.

That cat's smile peeped again. 'Of course not,' Simone said silkily. 'It must have been a very brief courtship—perhaps love at first sight,
hein
?'

'Something like that,' Andrea managed to return coolly.

'You have a saying—-do you not—that marriage in haste leads later to repentance.'

Andrea forced a smile. 'Again—something like that. We have another saying—that we'll have to keep our fingers crossed.'

'But your fingers are not crossed,' observed a small voice at her side.

'Now they are.' Andrea extended her hand with a swift smile.

Philippe studied them with a little frown. 'Rose-Emilie used to do that to send away evil spirits,' he remarked. 'Are you sending away evil spirits,
ma tante
?'

It was the first time he had acknowledged the new relationship that existed between them and Andrea's heart gave a little leap.

'Who is Rose-Emilie?' she asked.

'
Ma bonne
. She lived with us at Belle Riviere and looked after me. She used to tell me stories about the spirits of the forest—stories about Baron Samedi and the goddess Erzulie. They were good stories,' he added rather doubtfully. 'But sometimes they made me frightened.'

'I'm not surprised.' Andrea turned to Simone. 'Did you know that all this was going on?'

Simone shrugged idly. 'In other circumstances, Philippe would have grown to manhood on the island,' she said. 'Voodoo is part of the islanders' way of life. He would have accustomed himself in time.'

Oh, would he? Andrea thought silently. She looked down at Philippe. 'Go and put on a warm jersey,
mon petit
,' she urged gently. 'Then you can go out and play.'

It did not take Philippe more than a few moments to discover the joys of snowballing. His first direct hit on Andrea was greeted with a gleeful whoop that delighted her. For the first time, he had begun to sound and behave like an ordinary little boy, she thought.

In the middle of it all, she heard someone tapping on a window and looked up to see Alan peering down at them. She waved at him cheerfully, and made a beckoning gesture, almost without thinking. He vanished with alacrity, obviously intent on joining them, and "Andrea felt a pang of compunction. Blaise had already made it clear that he disapproved of her seeing too much of her compatriot. Would it annoy him that she had invited Alan down to join the snowball fight?

It was too late now to regret her impulse. Alan was already emerging from the gatehouse, shrugging himself into an ancient combat jacket, his eyes beaming behind his glasses.

'Whom have we here?' he asked, shaking the hand Philippe extended to him with due solemnity.

'My husband's ward. He's come to live with us.' Andrea tried to keep her tone noncommittal.

'Lucky lad.' Alan looked round approvingly. 'Paradise for kids, this place.'

'Yes.' Andrea felt subdued suddenly. 'Yes, I suppose it is.'

And one day it will all belong to him. Did Philippe know that? she wondered. And did Simone know it too? She gave herself a little mental shake. Of them all, she had to be the least concerned. She would not be here after all, to see Philippe come into his inheritance. And once her marriage was annulled, or a divorce was arranged, Simone's future role in all this would cease to concern her too. She had to remember this, to remember she was only there on sufferance, an unwilling partner in a marriage of convenience. Otherwise she was in grave danger of finding herself emotionally broken on the reefs of Blaise's indifference.

Forcing herself to an almost desperate gaiety, she seized a handful of snow and flung it at Alan, and within seconds the snow fight was on again, its pace even faster and more furious than before.

After a while, Andrea noticed that Philippe had begun to flag and guessed that he was not used to this type of strenuous exercise, so she suggested they should go round to the stable block and see if they could find Gaston.

She had wondered if the little boy would be nervous of horses, but he displayed no fear at all, and began feeding them handfuls of oats. Gaston was in the workshop which doubled as a tack room just off the main block, carefully applying a coat of fresh varnish to a large old-fashioned toboggan. Andrea exclaimed with delight and he grinned at her, while his fingers worked deftly. From his mumbled remarks, she gathered it had once been the plaything of Blaise and his brother, and she sighed inwardly as she visualised the two children playing together, with no premonitions of the tragedy and bitterness future years were to bring.

She heard a muted gasp at her side and looked down to see Philippe had come to join them.

'
Pour moi
?' He pointed almost disbelievingly at the toboggan and Andrea turned reassuringly.

'All for you,' she told him.

He drew a deep contented breath and a small cold hand crept into hers.

'It has not taken you long to find the way to Philippe's heart, Andrée.' Simone's voice was mocking as she stood in the doorway behind them. Andrea gave her a constrained smile, angry with herself for the instinctive jump she had given at the first sound of Simone's voice. She really had the noiseless approach down to a fine art, she thought crossly.

Simone strolled forward. She was wearing a trouser suit in a deep shade of red which managed to be vivid without being garish. The jacket had a large hood trimmed with white fur, and this was drawn up to frame her face becomingly. Alan was staring at her with his jaw dropping and Andrea could willingly have kicked him on the ankle.

Simone smiled around her. 'What a charming scene,' she remarked. 'A cosy family party—except that I do not think I have ever met you before,
monsieur
. Won't you introduce us, Andrée?'

Andrea complied with gritted teeth, registering as she knew she was intended to do that Simone apparently considered herself one of the family.

Simone was all charm, questioning Alan with apparently genuine interest on the nature of his researches, and listening to his replies with a rapt attention which would have flattered a man with twice Alan's sophistication. Perched elegantly on the corner of a work-bench, toying idly with an enormous screwdriver against which her hands looked amazingly small and fragile, Simone was an enchanting picture.

It was no wonder Philippe was bewitched, Andrea thought ruefully. He had let her hand go as the other girl had appeared, and was standing a few feet away with his head bent. The healthy flush that snowballing had engendered had faded, and he looked small and sallow again. Andrea was conscious of a sudden impulse to pick him up in her arms and hug him soundly, but she deliberately repressed it. It was all too likely that he would rebuff her, she thought, and that would give satisfaction to no one but Simone. She would just have to make haste slowly where Philippe was concerned.

Simone gave a little exaggerated start and clapped her hand to her mouth. 'But I forget everything!' Her smile embraced them all. 'Clothilde has made hot chocolate
pour tout le monde
. It will be cold if we do not go soon.' She swung herself lightly to the floor and tucked her arm through Alan's. 'You must come too,
monsieur
. If you have never tasted Clothilde's chocolate, then you have missed an unforgettable experience,
je vous assure
.'

She led him out of the tack room and back towards the chateau, leaving Andrea to follow somewhat dazedly with Philippe, wondering exactly who was the hostess and who the guest.

The chocolate was quite delicious, dark and sweet and topped with a swirl of cream, and Madame Bresson had made some small cakes, tasting of almond and still warm from the oven, to accompany it. Alan's eyes positively glistened when he saw them and he needed very little urging to help himself, which confirmed a lot of Andrea's suspicions about the austerity of his usual diet. She wondered if Blaise could be persuaded to invite him to dinner at the chateau occasionally, a train of thought which came to an abrupt halt with Blaise's own arrival. He was obviously in an irritable mood, but whether this was a hangover from the little scene at breakfast or caused by something that had happened during his morning's work, she had no means of knowing. One thing was certain. Blaise took one look at Alan and his slight frown deepened to thunder. Fortunately Alan himself seemed unaware of the paucity of his welcome from his host, or at least pretended not to notice, but the chocolate and cakes seemed to turn to ashes in Andrea's mouth.

She was not in the least surprised when after a few minutes, Alan announced that he had to get back to his work and got up, ready to depart, to Philippe's open disappointment.

'But my toboggan,' he protested through a mouthful of cake. 'You said you would show me how to ride it.'

'So I will,' Alan returned good-naturedly. 'But not today. The varnish won't be dry yet, for one thing. Don't worry,' he added, as Philippe's bottom lip began to jut stormily. 'The snow will be with us for days yet.'

Andrea's heart sank at his words. As long as the snow remained, so, it seemed, would Simone. She was still thoughtful when she returned to the dining room after showing Alan to the door—a task, she noticed ironically, that Simone did not volunteer for. As she resumed her seat, she encountered a chillingly bleak look from her husband.

'I thought I had made it clear that while I may tolerate that young man as a tenant, it does not mean I wish to entertain him as a guest.'

Andrea's eyes flashed indignantly, but before she could answer, Simone had interrupted.

'
Mon dieu
!' She looked from Blaise's granite-like face to Andrea's flushed cheeks. 1 see I have been indiscreet. Why did you not warn me, Andrée, that Blaise would be angry? But you must not blame your wife,
mon cher
. I invited her young Englishman to have chocolate with us. He is
tres charmant
,' she added with an air of almost childlike candour. 'I do not blame you for having a fondness for him.'

'But I don't,' Andrea began heatedly, then subsided, suddenly wary. She was conscious that no matter what she said, she would not emerge from the exchange with credit. Simone had managed to imply that she had some need to behave with discretion where Alan was concerned. Any protest she made after that was bound to sound either feeble, or altogether too vehement, as if she really did have something to hide. She picked up her cup and drank, but the chocolate was tepid, and the morning destroyed for her. Foolishly, she wanted to cry.

The next three days dragged past. Each morning as she reluctantly opened her eyes, Andrea found herself praying that some miracle might have occurred during the night, and that there might have been a swift thaw, but each morning as she drew back the curtains it was the same uncompromisingly white world she looked out on.

The snow began to seem like an enemy, threatening and beautiful, no matter how many times she told herself she was being ridiculous. She forced herself to share Philippe's pleasure in it, joining in the daily snowball fights, helping him to build snowmen and animals which stood around the courtyard like absurd sentinels. Sometimes they went for long walks together, but Andrea did not fool herself that she was drawing any closer to the child, or making headway in establishing a relationship with him. More often than not they walked in silence, occasionally exchanging a guarded smile. Any tentative questions Andrea put to him about his life at Belle Riviere or later with Simone were greeted by blank looks and monosyllabic replies, and she accepted this and forbore to ask again.