herself another drink but Bell shook her head when she waved the bottle in her direction. It all fitted in. She could imagine how Charles would withdraw, sealing his own misery up inside him and hating the show of it in others.
‘And Charles, all this time, was grieving in his own way?’ she asked gently. Juliette nodded. ‘In his own silent, self-punishing way, yes. I’m sure that there was blame in Charles’s heart, to be doled out as he sat there on his own, brooding. To all of us, probably, but most of all, most bitterly, to himself. And to God, I think, which must have hit him hardest of all. He couldn’t explain to himself why God should have taken such an innocent, blameless little thing, let him die so painfully, unless it was as a punishment. And punishment for who else but he and Catherine? Either there is no God and his son’s death was tragic chance, or it was … divine retribution, I suppose?’
Bell understood. So, by seeing the tragedy of his son’s death as punishment, for whatever sins he and Catherine were guilty of, Charles kept the fact of his faith alive. Yet he lost his wife, and at the same time locked himself in a marriage that denied him the chance of future happiness. With another woman, and another woman’s children, thought Bell bitterly.
Juliette was staring down into her glass, wrapped up in her own memories.
‘So Catherine left him?’ she prompted, with a trace of impatience, not understanding how the sad story had any bearing on the frozen ending of her birthday party three years later.
‘Oh no,’ said Juliette at once. ‘Not then. Something else was happening. You know that Château Larue-Grise once belonged to my mother’s family?’
Bell shook her head, surprised by the abrupt change of subject. Larue-Grise was a once-prestigious property a few kilometres from Reynard. It had been going downhill for fifteen years, but had changed hands a few seasons ago, and now there were excellent reports of it.
‘No,’ she answered, ‘I didn’t. I do know that it’s owned now by an American consortium who are investing large amounts of money, replanting and putting right the neglect … I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound very polite to your mother’s family.’
‘It doesn’t matter. There was no money and – well, the family sold out, as you rightly say, nominally to an American consortium.’
‘Nominally?’
Juliette smiled without any trace of amusement.
‘Oh yes. The real power behind the paper tide is your new friend Valentine Gordon.’ She held up her hand. ‘Don’t protest yet. There’s no doubt that he will be a new friend. He’s very charming. Very attractive. We all liked him, except for Charles who would have nothing to do with him from the very beginning. Too different, you see, too radically opposed on every possible point. Well, Valentine came from California to live at Larue-Grise, supervising the facelift. He was admirably thorough – not only must the vineyards be restocked, the chais kitted out with all the latest technology, but the château itself must be restored to its former glory. Naturally, he came to see Hélène to find out what he could about the old ways. We all became friends – at least, we women did. This was a little while before Christophe died.’
Juliette was looking at Bell now, candid and direct, her forehead wrinkled with the concentration needed to tell her story clearly against the effects of what she had drunk.
‘I liked him especially,’ she said, after a second’s hesitation. ‘He’s very powerful, very good at getting what he wants, but it’s all done with a … recklessness that makes you feel he doesn’t really care about anything. It’s a fatally appealing combination.’
Bell raised her eyebrows, not needing to put the question into words.
‘No,’ responded Juliette, ‘although I would have, with pleasure, if I hadn’t been occupied with someone else during those months.’
Bell was beginning to see.
‘Then there was Christophe’s illness. Afterwards, for a time, Valentine proved himself to be a real friend. He wasn’t part of it, not family, but he was always there when one of us needed to get away from this. I cried in his arms enough times, and Catherine did too.’
Bell’s suspicion became an unpleasant conviction.
‘He seduced her?’
‘Yes. He wanted her, and he saw his chance. He didn’t intend to take her away from Charles. He didn’t want to be responsible for her, or help her recover, or anything noble like that. He just wanted to put her notch on his belt.’ There was a dark red flush of anger over Juliette’s face and neck now, and her fists were clenched.
‘He was a bastard. I watched it happen, and I saw poor Catherine beginning to cling to him. She was getting better, coming back to life, and she needed love more than anything else. Valentine Gordon was hardly the man to give her love, of course, but she didn’t understand that. He was just warm, and full of life, and touchable. Of course she compared him with Charles, always silent, with that terrible, set, disgusted face.’
The rest of the story came out in a rush, as if she couldn’t wait to get it over and done with.
‘Then the inevitable happened. Valentine gave a party, to celebrate the end of the vintage. He always does – did. Catherine wanted to go and – oddly, I thought, although I understood later – so did Charles. There was a great deal of drinking. There always is, when Valentine is around. Then,’ Juliette sighed, and shrugged, ‘Charles saw them together, somewhere. Not in bed, I don’t think, but I suppose doing something that turned his suspicions into certainty. Instead of confronting them there and then, in private, he slipped away and waited until they came back to the party.’
She put her hands over her eyes as she spoke, as if she couldn’t bear to remember the scene.
‘Then, in front of what felt like the entire population of the Médoc, he stood up and accused Valentine of stealing his wife. And challenged him to a duel.’
Bell’s mouth fell open in amazement.
‘A duel?’
‘That was more or less Val’s reaction. In fact I can still hear exactly what he said into the awful silence in the room. It was “Jesus Christ, a fucking duel. This is the twentieth century, Baron. Why don’t you just come over here and smash my face in?” Charles didn’t, of course. I wish he had. Instead he turned around and walked out, leaving Valentine standing there with Catherine like a ghost beside him. Val tried to laugh it all off, rather shakily, but I think he was wishing then that he had taken up the challenge.’
Bell said sharply, ‘Not all that reckless after all,’ and Juliette smiled at her.
‘It’s quite right that your sympathy should be with Charles, but you mustn’t assume that it was cowardly of Val to refuse the pistols at dawn or whatever crazy idea it was that my brother had. He just thought it was irrelevant. Not the way to solve a problem.’
Bell knew that she was right. But the vivid image of Charles waiting to fight in the grey light of some misty-wet meadow excited her, perversely. Suddenly she wanted him very much.
‘Then what?’ she asked Juliette dully.
‘After the party, the next day or the day after, Catherine packed up her things and went away. We saw no more of Valentine, and I heard a little later that he had gone back to California. That’s
