only when his letters began to arrive at regular intervals. She read parts of them to me as they came in one by one; but only small portions, skipping the intimate bits, I suspect. I’ve been brought up to believe that my father was quite a man with the fancy words, especially when it came to wooing women.
First he was in Australia, then he went to New Zealand, and finally he left the Antipodes and traveled to Tahiti. Fiji was another port of call as he wandered around the Pacific, God knows in search of what. Other women? More exotic women? Not long after my mother received a letter from him postmarked Tonga communications had abruptly ceased. We never heard from him again.
When I was small I used to think that my mother was suffering from a broken heart, that she was endlessly yearning for my father. I had not known then that eighteen months after Liam Delaney had set sail for those exotic isles of Micronesia, she was already falling in love with Sebastian Locke.
Now, leaning forward on the bench, I squinted slightly, narrowing my eyes, peering out into the sunlit garden…
In my mind’s eye I saw him quite clearly, walking across the lawn toward me, just the way he had done all those years ago.
Sebastian Locke, heading in my direction, long-limbed, slender, the embodiment of nonchalant grace, walking toward me.
That summer’s afternoon, the first time I ever set eyes on him, I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He was far more handsome than my father, which was saying a lot indeed. Sebastian was tall and dark-haired like my father, but whereas Liam’s eyes were velvet-brown and depthful, Sebastian’s were a clear, vivid blue, the brightest of blues. Like bits of sky, I recall thinking that day, and they had a piercing quality to them. It was as if they could see right through you, as if they could see into your mind and heart. I really believed he knew exactly what I was thinking; even last Monday I had thought the same thing over lunch.
Sebastian was wearing white gabardine pants and a pale blue shirt on that stifling July day in 1970. The shirt was made of voile, almost flimsy in weight. I’ve liked voile shirts on men ever since. The shirt was open at the neck, with the sleeves rolled up, and his face and arms were tan. His body was tanned as well. I could see it through the voile. He was a lithe man, very fit, athletic.
He had leaned against the posts of the gazebo and smiled at me. His teeth were very white and even in his sun-bronzed face, his mouth sensitive, and the vivid eyes were set wide apart in that arresting face.
Those eyes regarded me unblinkingly, and with great interest for a few seconds. It was when he said, “Hello, young lady, you must be the famous Vivienne,” that I had felt myself becoming hot around my face and neck. Then he had stretched out his hand toward me. As I had taken it he had nodded slightly, as though acknowledging me yet again. He held onto my hand much longer than I expected, and as I looked up into that open, clean-cut face, my own very serious in its expression, my heart had skipped several beats.
And of course I had fallen hopelessly in love with him. I was all of twelve years old at the time, but I felt much older on that particular day. Very grown up. After all, it was the first time a man had actually made me blush.
Sebastian was thirty-two but looked much younger, extremely boyish and carefree. Vaguely, I somehow knew that he was the kind of man women automatically gravitate to; somehow I understood that he had charisma, sex appeal, that je ne sais quoi the French forever talk about.
In any case I was all agog over him. I never did get him to admit it to me, but I was certain he felt something special for me that day.
On the other hand, he might have liked me simply because I was the daughter of my mother, the beauteous Antoinette Delaney, with whom he was having a grand love affair at the time.
That afternoon, when he had sauntered up the steps of the gazebo and seated himself next to me, I had known he was going to play a huge part in my life, in my future. Don’t ask me how the young girl that I was then sensed this. She just did.
We had talked about horses, which he knew scared me to death. He had asked me if I would like to come to Laurel Creek Farm in Cornwall to learn to ride.
“I have a son, Jack, who’s six, and a daughter, Luciana, who’s four. They’re already astride their ponies and doing well. Say you’ll come and ride with us, Vivienne, say you’ll come and stay at the horse farm. Your mother’s a fine equestrienne, as you well know. She wants you to ride as proficiently as she does. You mustn’t be afraid of horses. I will teach you how to ride myself. You’ll be safe with me.” He was correct in that, I did feel safe with him, and he did teach me to ride well, showing much more patience and understanding than my mother. And I loved him all the more for that.
A long time later, many years later, I realized he had been trying to make us into a family, that he had wanted my mother for himself. For always. But how could she have been his forever? She was married to Liam Delaney, and he had gone missing far across the ocean. Until she got a divorce she could never remarry. Not Sebastian. Not anyone. Still, Sebastian had tried to blend us into a tight-knit little circle, and in certain ways he succeeded.
That afternoon, staring up at him, I had only been able to nod mutely as he talked about horses, tried to reassure me about learning to ride. I was rendered speechless by this man, totally mesmerized by him.
I was under his spell.
And I was forever after, for that matter.
It was Belinda who broke into my memories and my golden dreams, who scattered my beloved ghosts to the far corners of Gran Rosalie’s garden.
“Vivienne, Vivienne!” she called as she hurried down the path, waving frantically. “It’s the New York Times. They’re on the phone.”
I leaped to my feet on hearing this and raced toward her. We met in the middle of the lawn. “The New York Times?” I repeated, searching her face, my heart sinking.
“Yes, they’ve gotten wind of it…wind of Sebastian’s death. They seem to know that the police were called in, that the circumstances are suspicious. Etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, the reporter wants to have a word with you.”
The mere thought of tomorrow’s headlines around the world sent a chill surging through me. And of course there would be headlines. A famous man had died, a man of conscience and compassion…the world’s greatest philanthropist. And he might have been murdered. I shrivelled inside at the mere thought of those headlines. The press would turn his life upside down and inside out. No one, nothing, would be sacrosanct.
“The reporter wants to talk to you, Vivienne,” Belinda said more urgently, taking hold of my arm. “He’s waiting.”
“Oh God,” I groaned. “Why me?”
“Why me?” I repeated later that evening, staring up at Jack. “Why did you elect me to be the spokesperson for this family?”
He had just arrived for supper a few minutes ago, and we were in my small den at the rear of the house, a room he preferred: It was intimate, warm, with its red brocaded walls and old Persian carpet. He hovered in front of me, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets.
Returning my stare, seemingly at a loss, he did not answer. Then shaking his head in a thoughtful way, he
