Strands of Bronze and Gold (2 page)

“Come this way, Miss Petheram,” he said. He spoke excellent English. He led me through a long gallery with adjoining anterooms and salons. It was a kaleidoscope of dazzling opulence—gold leaf and stamped leather, rich tapestries and ornate paintings. Only I was out of place.

I fingered the hair brooch at my throat—brown strands from my father and coppery strands from my mother—plaited by my sister, Anne, into a heart shape.

On the journey I had whiled away the moments, hours, days by designing dresses in my mind. It was a weakness of mine that often I’d get so enmeshed in my musings I would forget reality. In my imaginary meeting with M. de Cressac, I had worn a gown of emerald green silk with jet beads embroidered in the skirt that clicked as I walked. I could hear it. I could feel it—the weight of the beads. I looked down. Surprise! Still ugly black bombazine. Never had I imagined I would meet my guardian swathed in a fabric so dark and dull it swallowed the light of every room.

By the time Mr. Ling threw back double doors, announcing my name, my mouth was dry as cotton and my hands sticky as they clutched my reticule.

My godfather rose from a chair, and we stood looking at each other. Everything in me seemed to spiral. This person standing before me was the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes upon.

His hair and beard were black with a few silver threads that gave them almost a bluish cast. His features were finely chiseled, with
laugh lines around the eyes. To my delight (and dismay), he sported small silver hoops in his ears, like a pirate. I had always adored pirates. Tall and powerfully built, his buff linen coat fit his figure superbly and he carried himself with the natural grace of an athlete as he strode toward me.

I curtsied and he bowed slightly.

He took my small hands in his large ones and looked down into my face without speaking. His eyes were the color of honey.

Time to launch into the words I had prepared. “I am pleased to meet you at last, sir. You are most kind to let me come and live in your beautiful home.”

“Enchanté, Mademoiselle.”
His tone was grave, but amusement flashed across his features at my polite little speech. He held my hand to his lips and kissed it, still watching my face.

“My—my family sends their good wishes and compliments.”

M. de Cressac laughed outright now. “Do they indeed? After I have stolen away their sister? My little Sophia, at last you come to me. Let me see you better.” He pushed back my bonnet so it hung by its ribbons from my neck.

I looked him bravely in the eye without blinking as he studied me.

“Oui,”
he said softly. “Yes.” His hand smoothed my damp, rumpled hair. “Do you know—no, how could you?—that the one time I saw you, you were a babe in your dear mother’s arms. She was ill, and died soon after, but still a beauty. She had a certain fey quality, as though she were not quite of this world, and I suspected you would look just like her when you were grown.”

The story was that as a scrawny, squalling infant, red of face and
hair (my brother Harry’s description), I had enchanted M. de Cressac, although no one could imagine why. It must have been my mother who did the enchanting.

“And—and is Madame de Cressac at home?” I asked.

“I am, alas, a widower.”

A widower. My father had said Madame de Cressac was a French lady. A lovely French lady. “I didn’t know—I’m so sorry. Papa should … he should have told us.”

“He probably did not know. I am afraid I did not communicate with Martin much these last years.”

As my godfather spoke, an elderly woman with an unfortunate nose and an immense silver tray shuffled into the room, a chatelaine jingling from her waist. She paused, regarding me with an anxious scrutiny.

“Ah,” M. de Cressac said, taking the tray from her hands, “Mrs. Duckworth, allow me to present my goddaughter, Sophia Petheram. Sophia, Mrs. Duckworth is the housekeeper here and worth her weight in gold.”

The lady beamed first at M. de Cressac and then at me. Her eyes nearly squinted shut. Her skin was doughy, with large pores. “You’re very welcome, I’m sure.” She had a British accent and her voice was pitched unusually high.

“Mrs. Duckworth’s greatest pleasure is looking after people,” M. de Cressac said. “If there is anything you should want, let her know, and she will see to it that you get it. Unless, of course, I notice and give it to you first.” He winked at me. “Be assured we intend to spoil you.”

“That we do.” The housekeeper nodded so enthusiastically that
the gold brooch on her ample bosom bobbed. “Now, Miss, sit you down and have a nice glass of cold lemonade and some refreshment, and then I will show you to your room.”

“I will accompany you both,” M. de Cressac said. “I want to see Sophia’s face when she first sets eyes on her bedchamber.”

My last qualms were put to flight by this reception. Obviously Mrs. Duckworth was respectability itself, even if there was no longer a Madame de Cressac in the household.

The tea tray was mounded with lemon tarts, maids of honor, jam cake with burnt sugar glaze, coconut cake with divinity icing, cream buns, and cheesecakes. I sipped lemonade (mint was sprinkled on it, making it taste like grass, only in a pleasing way) and nibbled a cream bun, trying not to let cream ooze everywhere, while my godfather inquired about my journey.

“Your carriage was wonderful,” I said, swallowing quickly. “I’ve never been in one as well sprung. I could sink back into the cushions and rest and even read without the swaying and bumping making me ill. And all the blooming magnolia trees in the town are lovely. So Southern-looking.”

“Yes, Chicataw, Mississippi, is indeed ‘Southern-looking.’ ”

“People nearly fell out of their windows staring as we drove by. They must have recognized your crest on the door.”

“Naturally they are eaten up with curiosity. Although I have been here twenty-five years, I am still the strange foreigner. We have few dealings in the town.” He noticed me dab my forehead with my handkerchief. “When first I came to the South, the heat was oppressive, but I am used to it now.”

“I’ll become used to it too,” I said. “You should have seen the
suspicious character I rode with in the coach on the way to Memphis. As we drove, I thought up all sorts of stories explaining him. He wore a greatcoat and a hat pulled down over his ears. While the rest of us shoved up our sleeves and fanned ourselves with everything we could lay our hands on—newspapers and handkerchiefs and, of course, real fans if we could find ours—and took off anything we were allowed to take off, he only unfastened the top button of his coat. First his collar wilted, then his tie went crooked, and then he simply gave up and leaned back and slept, snoring. The sweat pooled in his ears and a fly crawled across his nose. It was dreadful to behold a human being dissolve before my very eyes.”

“Certainly it would be disturbing,” my godfather said. “Dear me, what dangerous and grueling adventures you have been through! And yet you appear charmingly unscathed.”

He told about his estate. His voice melted around me like warm chocolate. He had just enough French accent to add to his charm. “The main house was a real English abbey. One that housed medieval monks and nuns. Are you disappointed it is not a new house? That it is so … well used?”

“Oh, no! I love antique places, and this one is amazing. I used to pass the old section in Boston and feel envious. There was one house in particular that dated from the mid-1600s and it—it was intriguing.” I compressed my lips to keep from launching into a long story. M. de Cressac had an odd and contradictory effect on me. I had never been a chatterbox, but the way he watched me, as if fascinated, stimulated me to keep talking on and on. However, it was not because he made me comfortable; indeed, a certain tension quivered in the air, and I sat bolt upright on the edge of my chair.

“Bah! Boston!” He dismissed the city with a flick of one long hand. “Two hundred puny years is nothing. But I am happy you consider the abbey ‘amazing.’ Many were amazed when I brought it over here block by block and put it back together in this setting. I added wings designed to blend perfectly with the ancient.”

Mrs. Duckworth chimed in often, her face wreathed with smiles.

As I answered their questions, I tried to absorb the—yes,
amazing
—room in which we sat. It was a witness to my godfather’s powers of enchantment that I hadn’t noticed it earlier. Three walls and the ceiling were covered with painted mythological figures, some of which seemed to stride out disconcertingly or peer at me over M. de Cressac’s shoulder.

My godfather ceased whatever he was saying in midsentence. “I see you are admiring this room, Sophia. It is called the Heaven chamber. An apt name, is it not?”

“It’s glorious. Quite breathtaking, although …”

“Although what? In what way does my Heaven room displease you? I will have it changed immediately to be more to your taste.”

I blushed. “It’s only—oh, I’m so silly—it’s only that I wish more of the bodies were clothed.”

Both my godfather and his housekeeper burst into peals of laughter.

“And I had
so
hoped to impress you with my lovely room. Foolish me. So you do not like all the rolls of rosy, naked flesh?” M. de Cressac pinched my chin. “Ah,
mon ange
, you are a delightful innocent. Would you have me paint a top hat and frock coat on Zeus? A dowager’s shawl and bonnet on Hera?”

I made myself join in with a weak giggle. “Perhaps a riding habit on Diana?”

“Yes! Yes!” M. de Cressac slapped his thigh. Soon I was really laughing. Everything was more comfortable once we had laughed together.

My godfather flung open the doors to my bedroom. I could feel his eyes on my face, gauging my reaction. I entered the room, prepared to appear delighted. There was no need for pretense. Obviously I was not to be treated as a pitiful, unwanted relation. I turned to M. de Cressac and tried to say the words “Thank you,” but no sound came out.

He nodded, smiling. He understood.

A world of underwater fantasy stretched before us. The bed, shaped like a gigantic opalescent seashell, was raised on a dais and swathed in a velvet coverlet the color of sea foam. Curtains of filmy green-blue, shot through with silver, hung about it, as well as mosquito netting that could be held down by posts in the footboard. The floor was of mottled blue marble, polished and slick as glass, while white-paneled walls held niches showcasing statues of dolphins and sea gods. Above the mantel, which was held up by alabaster mermaids, soared an undersea mosaic featuring starfish and seaweed done all in luminous blue, gray, and lavender mother-of-pearl,
and in front of the fireplace squatted a massive round ottoman upholstered in crushed white velvet, tufted with pearls.

I had always craved luxury, so this room was a delight, although my Puritan ancestors might well be turning over in their graves. I dashed from one beautiful item to another. I could scarcely believe I was now the proud owner of a dressing table stocked with a marble-backed hand mirror, combs, and brushes, as well as a glittering array of faceted crystal bottles and jars and pots of ointments and powders and perfumes. What would my brother Harry think if he saw me using these artifices? He used to tease that I was vain because he caught me gazing at myself in the mirror once. Perhaps he was right—certainly it was lovely to be young and fortunate and have my godfather say I resembled my mother, who had been a “beauty.”

M. de Cressac might have been reading my mind because he said suddenly, “You favor your mother in more ways than hair and features. Your voice, the way you move, even your expression—as if you are thinking delightful, secret thoughts. I once called her
mon rayon de soleil
—a ray of sunshine.”

“How well did you know her?”

“Not as well as I wished.”

“Won’t you tell me more about her? No one would ever answer my questions satisfactorily.”

“Someday. When I am in the mood.”

I lifted a pearl-handled pen shaped like a feather from the dainty lady’s desk. Every consideration had been prepared. “You’re too good, sir!” I cried. He was, indeed, too good, and I intended to enjoy every bit of it.

He beamed down from his imposing height. “Allow me to be generous. I have lived too long without my … goddaughter.” He hesitated over the last word, lightly brushing a stray wisp of hair from my cheek. “Mrs. Duckworth will show you your powder closet and the wardrobes, which are stocked with a few ready-made frocks to make do until Madame Duclos can supply you with new ones.”

“Surely I have enough for right now.” I felt I should protest at least a little. “After all, I’m in mourning still for my father.”

“Ah, that is where I hope you will humor me.” He clasped his hands together beneath his chin. “Your father was a good friend to me. You know he was my attorney when I was in great trouble, and I mourn his death. However, I cannot bear to see you always drooping in black like a sad little starling. Will you not oblige me by coming out of mourning now? No one here will judge us for our breach of etiquette. You can honor your father in other ways. You must remember the happy times and tell me of them.”