Wild Lavender (41 page)

Odette’s poise in the face of Guillemette’s hysteria reminded me of those fairytales where a beautiful princess
must match her wits against a wicked witch. Guillemette accused me of base behaviour, but Odette had shown her that the only vulgar person was Guillemette herself.

When Guillemette realised that she could not frighten us, she turned to leave. Before she did, however, she pointed her finger at me again. She was about to speak but stopped herself. Her face broke into a smile. She pushed past Paulette, who was stepping out onto the terrace with a tray, and stormed through the house. A few minutes later we heard a car motor start.

‘
Mon Dieu
,’ said Odette. ‘I have never met anyone like that in my life.’

But I couldn’t respond. I had been too unnerved by Guillemette’s smile.

On the day that André was due to return from Portugal I sat in the drawing room all afternoon, waiting for the sound of his car. I had received a telegram from him to say that he had arrived safely, but after that had heard nothing. He returned after nightfall, the car wheels crunching on the gravel and the headlights glinting through the window. I rushed to the door to meet him, and wrapped my arms around his waist, cowering against the stinging wind.

‘It is blowing a gale,’ he said, stepping into the hall and bringing a swirl of leaves and twigs with him. He handed his coat and hat to Paulette.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘There is a fire in the drawing room. I will get you a drink.’

André looked up at the ceiling then dropped his gaze to the walls and furnishings. ‘These chairs,’ he said, running his hands over the leather, ‘they’re fantastic. They make you want to sink into them.’

‘Please do.’ I handed him a glass of cognac. ‘I can’t wait to show you the rest of the house. All the main rooms are finished.’

‘After dinner,’ he said, taking a sip from his glass. ‘I didn’t eat on the train.’

‘Well, after dinner then.’

I looked at André more closely. He was smiling but there was something else…a tension in his eyes.

‘André, what happened?’ I asked, kneeling by his side. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

He stared at me, distracted. I had brought his thoughts back from miles away. It is because he is tired, I persuaded myself. Not because his father has changed his mind. No; André would have telephoned or written to me straightaway if that were the case. I had told him about Guillemette’s visit before he left for Portugal and he had laughed it off. ‘Guillemette reacts hysterically to everything. I’ve never known my father to pay attention to her,’ he’d said.

‘Let me show you the master bedroom,’ I said. ‘Then you can see the other rooms tomorrow after you’ve had a rest.’

I led him up the stairs, pointing out the mirrors and furniture Joseph, Odette and I had chosen. Although he was enthusiastic about each piece, he also seemed to be growing more miserable with each step. The fireplace in the bedroom was lit and Kira was curled on a rug in front of it. André stepped towards her. Whenever she saw him, Kira would roll over on her back so he could scratch her stomach. André bent down to her but stopped halfway and slid to the floor as if he had been shot. I rushed towards him. He was holding his face in his hands, crying.

‘What is the matter?’ I asked, cradling him in my arms.

André rubbed his face and stared at me. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I want us to be together for ever.’

A gust of wind blew through the trees outside the window and somewhere I heard a branch snap.

André’s face twisted. He pressed his wet cheek against my throat. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘What happened? Did your father refuse?’

‘It is worse than that,’ he said, standing up and stumbling to the window. ‘He says that if I go ahead and marry you, he will banish me from the family.’

I was too stunned to say anything at first. It was the most extreme thing a parent could do to a child. I tried to get my mind to slow down and think clearly. I would hardly have been shocked if Monsieur Blanchard had refused permission all along, but to suddenly retract his word? If he didn’t take Guillemette seriously, what would have caused him to do this?

‘What made him change his mind?’ I asked.

André shook his head, staring at me with bewildered eyes.

‘There must be some way around this,’ I muttered. ‘There has to be.’

‘Not if I can’t legally be with you.’ André rushed to the bed and punched the mattress. No, I thought, please don’t. Please don’t say what I think you are going to tell me.

His voice was barely audible above the crying wind. ‘He expects me to marry next year, but not you, Simone. He wants me to marry Princesse de Letellier.’

The storm was still blowing the following morning when I opened my eyes and saw that the wind had stripped the leaves from the trees outside the window. My bones ached with exhaustion. My eyes were so swollen it was hard to blink. André was still sleeping, slumped against my shoulder like a man in a coma. We had cried for hours before falling asleep in the early hours of the morning, too spent to cry any more.

Why was Monsieur Blanchard doing this? Why couldn’t he let us be happy together as we had been for the past decade?

I slipped out of bed and gazed through the window. I felt Monsieur Blanchard’s betrayal like a slap in the face. Perhaps there had been some misunderstanding? I
remembered Guillemette’s smile. Had she told him some lie?

When André woke, he told me that he was going to his own office to sort some things out. I couldn’t bring myself to look in his eyes. When I finally did, I saw that they were wild with fear.

‘I don’t care about the money, Simone,’ he said. ‘Or the power of my family name. I would give all that up for you. All of it. It doesn’t mean anything to me.’

Yes, André, I thought. I know you would. But your mother and your sister? Could I ask that of you?

After André left, I dressed and went to the film studios. Renoir had asked me to play a small part in his new film. I had agreed as a favour because it was only one day of shooting, but when I saw the awe with which the other actors looked at me when I arrived on set, I regretted it. Did I have the strength to go through with this now? Just the day before I had been as blissful as any soon-to-be bride about to marry the love of her life. Now everything was falling apart.

I was determined that none of the cast or crew, not even Renoir, should see me cry. André and I weren’t defeated yet. Whenever there was a break, I slipped from the set and walked down the corridor to the production secretary’s empty office. There, I would slump in her chair and release my tears for a few minutes before collecting myself, powdering the blotchiness from my face and striding back on set as if I were the luckiest woman in the world.

After the shooting was complete, Renoir sat with me in the cafeteria and talked for an hour about an idea he had for an American–French production that would star me. Although he spoke with energy and I nodded enthusiastically, when the chauffeur came to pick me up and Renoir kissed my cheeks, I realised that I couldn’t recollect a word of the conversation.

‘Is everything all right, Mademoiselle?’ Paulette asked me when I arrived home. The concern in her voice nearly caused me to break down. I tried to hold myself together,
but the effort made me sound like I was choking. ‘I am not feeling very well today. I am going to rest in my room.’

I lay down on the bed, fear creeping over me like a winter fog. I had never considered that money might be something that could break me and André apart, yet I began to see how it might. I had a fortune of my own and would have gladly set André up in business. But my resources did not match the wealth of the Blanchard family. If André was disowned by one of the most powerful families in France, it would not work in his favour. Businessmen needing the goodwill of Monsieur Blanchard senior would not show favour towards his son. André could go into show business management, but was that what he wanted to do? I knew how much he had loved his work over the past few years. Could he give that up and still remain André?

I glanced at my watch. It was four o’clock. I wondered if Monsieur Blanchard would still be at his office.

I had expected Monsieur Blanchard to greet me with the same exasperation of a boss dealing with a dismissed employee who wants her job back, but he was merely evasive.

‘Some coffee, Mademoiselle Fleurier?’ he asked, after offering me a seat by his desk.

‘You know why I have come.’

He nodded, his jaw set, steeling himself for a confrontation. It was not his usual approach; I was used to Monsieur Blanchard being smug. But the change in his behaviour was only temporary. He sat down, moved his pen from the left to the right side of his desk then back again, gathering his strength. ‘Your coming here won’t change my mind,’ he said. ‘A man in André’s position cannot marry whomever he pleases. He has responsibilities. Marriage is not a frivolous thing. But I am prepared to hear you out.’

‘Is love a frivolous reason to get married?’ I asked. ‘If it is, why didn’t you refuse outright to let us marry years ago?’

‘Marriage is about family, reputation and duty. It has nothing to do with love,’ said Monsieur Blanchard, curling his fingers over and examining his nails.

My impression was right. He was being evasive. ‘And what is it about me that suddenly offends your sense of family, reputation and duty that didn’t only a year ago?’ I asked.

Monsieur Blanchard rubbed his eyes. ‘You seem to have misunderstood me, Mademoiselle Fleurier. I have always liked you. I do not object to André being fond of you. I do not object to you having a house together. I do not even object to you having children together, but those children will not carry the Blanchard name. For that André must marry someone from a reputable family. However, I see nothing wrong in a man having a beautiful mistress
and
a dutiful wife. In fact, I think it is necessary to a man’s domestic happiness.’

My stomach rolled over. A terrible idea began to dawn on me. It was well known that Monsieur Blanchard had a mistress in Lyon. Was it possible that André, not a philanderer like his father, had misunderstood his father’s intentions towards us? Maybe Monsieur Blanchard had given his blessing to our relationship but not our union.

‘Go on,’ I said.

Monsieur Blanchard glanced away from me, out the window. ‘You must understand yourself that you and André are not a suitable marriage. Who are your family, Mademoiselle Fleurier?’

I had been around Paris society enough to know about class prejudice. My fortune was greater than that of Princesse de Letellier’s, whose origins were not much more impressive than mine. Her maternal grandfather had been a sardine fisherman who had made a fortune and bought a fleet. Her mother had gained a title by marrying the impoverished Prince de Letellier. And yet my social
position was considered lower than the Princesse de Letellier’s because I had made my wealth myself, and self-made women were a threat to the status quo. Coco Chanel was the richest woman in the world, but she was snubbed as a ‘tradesperson’ in Paris’s elite salons.

Whatever I had come for, I was not going to get it from Monsieur Blanchard, and until I spoke to André there was no point antagonising him further. I rose from my chair. ‘I had an uncle like you, Monsieur Blanchard,’ I told him. ‘He was bloody-minded in his determination to have his way. He died with nothing but regrets.’

Monsieur Blanchard met my eyes. ‘Do not fight this, Mademoiselle Fleurier,’ he said. ‘You will not save André by marrying him. In fact, you will destroy him.’

I left Monsieur Blanchard’s office and didn’t look back. But out on the boulevard, it occurred to me that Monsieur Blanchard had not been cocky or arrogant. He had spoken as if the decision were somehow out of his hands.

André sat on the sofa in the drawing room, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘So my father thinks you are acceptable as a mistress but not as a wife?’

For a man to have a regular mistress wasn’t an unusual arrangement in upper-class marriages. The wives didn’t like it, but they couldn’t object unless they were prepared to lose everything under the Napoleonic code. Did I love André so much that I was prepared to share him with another woman? I flinched from the crushing pain in my chest, imagining myself waving goodbye to André as he drove off to return to his wife and legitimate children.

‘It is impossible,’ said André, stroking my hair. ‘I love you too much. Imagine fathering children with you and not being able to give them a name?’

A few weeks later, André went to see Count Kessler in Lyon where he was staying with his sister. The Spanish War had arrived in Mallorca and the Fascists were executing German exiles, so the Count had moved back to France. One drizzly afternoon, I was sitting in the drawing room when Paulette announced that Madame Blanchard had arrived to see me. Since Monsieur Blanchard’s refusal to let us marry, André and I had avoided his family. We had drifted between reality and a dreamlike state. There had been whole hours, at the opera or walking hand in hand in the park, when we forgot what we were facing and life seemed as blissful as it always had been between us. I sensed the arrival of Madame Blanchard was about to crack that fragile shell. Indeed, even before Paulette had left the room, Madame Blanchard collapsed onto the sofa, sobbing. ‘He destroyed Laurent and now he is going to destroy André,’ she said.

I had not been eating properly the last few days and almost swooned when I stood up. I felt sorrier for Madame Blanchard than I did for André or myself. She had to live with the self-conceited tyrant. ‘Madame Blanchard,’ I said, sitting down next to her and putting my hand on her knee. ‘You have always been good to me. You wanted André to marry me, didn’t you? You wanted us to be happy here.’

Her face twisted. ‘I would have been proud to have such a lovely daughter-in-law,’ she said. ‘And I know how happy you have made André.’

‘You see no possibility that Monsieur Blanchard will change his mind?’

Madame Blanchard shook her head. A shiver ran through me and I turned away. For the first time, I saw the possibility that I could lose André. At first, Monsieur Blanchard’s refusal had brought out our unshakeable belief that our love could conquer all. But what next? How long before external pressures began to conspire against us?