The Keeper of the Walls Page 6

  “So soon in the relationship?” Claire inquired.

  “It’s most important. He needs to meet you, to see what a lovely table you set—to understand that we aren’t just nouveau riche upstarts from nowhere.”

  Lily thought: Mama isn’t. And again she wondered why her parents, such different people, had ever come together. Claire asked: “And who is this most distinguished personage? A deputy?”

  “Prince Mikhail Brasilov.”

  Lily blinked. Claude wasn’t looking at her, but at their mother. She could feel her anger mounting, and her disgust. Claire said: “But—I’m not sure. It might be quite wrong.”

  “Why wrong? To invite someone to dinner?”

  “Wrong,” she said, with emphasis “because of Lily.” And her large dark eyes didn’t leave his face. They spoke for her, and made him shift on the little chair.

  “But Lily hardly knows him. They said hello, and that was that. For Papa and me, this would be important.”

  “But for me, it would be wrong. And that, my dear boy, is that.”

  “Very well,” Claude said tightly. He rose, but his lips were pinched. Perfunctorily he bent down to kiss his mother, and then he was gone. The two women remained alone, sewing, silent. But neither was concentrating on what she was doing.

  At the end of dinner, some hours later, Paul Bruisson raised his head from his pommes de terre a la Dauphinoise and said to his wife: “Next Thursday, we shall have Prince Brasilov to supper. Plan something really fine. These Russians are used to seven-course dinners in the privacy of their own homes—so do your best. Lily can help you.”

  Claire’s face, very pale, met her husband’s eyes, and she said nothing. But she turned to Claude and looked at him with silent reproach. He smiled back, guiltlessly, and turned his hands palms up in the air. “You see,” he murmured. “Papa had the same idea.”

  “But Prince Mikhail will refuse to come,” Lily spoke up suddenly. The compressed revolt inside her showed in red patches on her cheeks. “He’s a man of dignity—he’ll refuse.”

  “He’ll accept,” her brother countered, smiling at her. “You’ll see.”

  Misha held the monogrammed vellum in his strong fingers, and was perplexed. Clearly this was the writing of a woman of breeding, of a lady. Under normal circumstances he’d want to meet her, his curiosity aroused. But not if it meant having to socialize with the Bruissons, father and son. He’d categorically refuse, so that they’d feel the extent of his rejection: so that they’d know it had been improper even to suggest it.

  He put the note down on his desk, and brought forward a thick folder. The sardine cannery. He leafed through the first few pages, then suddenly set them down and picked up the note from Claire Bruisson. Such fine, elegant handwriting! The girl’s mother.

  He’d thought of her on and off for the last few weeks, even though he knew he should have forgotten her. And now, this note. They were trapping him, he knew it. They were holding out the girl as their bait. How could he refuse the dinner invitation if he ever planned to see her again?

  There had to be some other way, a way of his own, not controlled by them. Misha sat at the large desk and thought. Then, impulsively, he reached for his pen and notepaper. He began to write:

  Chère Madame,

  I beg you to accept my sincere apologies for having to decline your kind dinner invitation. A previous engagement prevents me from complying.

  I would, however, be most unhappy if this meant that I must miss meeting you. Would you be so generous as to let me know when you would be free to receive me during the afternoon? I should be honored to make your acquaintance and call on you and your charming daughter, to whose memory I commit myself.

  With my compliments, I remain

  Your humble servant, Mikhail Ivanovitch Brasilov.

  Misha folded the letter and inserted it into a matching envelope embossed with the family crest. Then he rang for his secretary. “Rochefort,” he said. “See to it that this note is hand-delivered today, and have the messenger wait for a reply.”

  Mikhail Brasilov was hardly surprised by the Villa Persane. The maître d’hôtel was well trained, but as soon as the prince was inside the house, he began to feel shivers of revulsion. All his life he had liked simplicity; the villa was anything but simple. The salon into which he was ushered was an orgy of ornate Empire furnishings. Lowboys of mahogany and bronze lorded it over gilt wood ceremonial armchairs that resembled thrones, with bronze swans holding up the arms. On one of these bergères with sphinxes under the armrests sat one of the most beautiful middle-aged women he had ever seen. And this took him aback on the instant when he first crossed the threshold.

  Claire smiled at him with a kind of motherly understanding. He realized that he’d stood without moving for too many seconds, taken in by the cameo loveliness of the woman’s face. She was alone, out of place in this sitting room, but in no way ill at ease. He had been ill at ease, confused like a child. Now he stepped forward and brought to his lips the hand that she offered him.

  “I am Claire Bruisson,” she said, and he thought her accent was not quite French. “Welcome, your Excellency. My daughter and I were charmed by the thoughtfulness of your letter.”

  “I am pleased that you could receive me on such short notice, madame.” He sat down near her.

  “I have heard much about you. You and your father have accomplished a virtual miracle of readaptation. The fate of the Russian exiles has touched our hearts. To have to leave such a beautiful country . . .”

  “France, too, is beautiful. But you, Madame, unless I am mistaken, are not French.”

  She inclined her head, smiling. “How good an ear you have, Prince Mikhail. I was born in Belgium. I am, naturally, a French citizen, but my formative years were spent elsewhere. And you? Are you planning to become French now?”

  He sighed. “Unless it becomes a necessity, I doubt it. I shall always be a Russian. I would see it as a form of treason to abandon my citizenship. My family is from Kiev, which is where Russia first began. But I don’t wish to bore you.”

  It was strange, but he was closer in years to this woman than to her daughter. Only ten years separated him from Claire, but fifteen from Lily. Perhaps that was too much. He was afraid his thoughts would betray him, though, after all, sooner or later he would have to come forward and speak for the girl. He wondered where she was, and, without thinking, turned around.

  She said, softly: “Lily is supervising the cook, and our tea. She will be here presently.”

  He felt the blood rushing to his cheekbones. “You have a most special daughter, Madame. Direct, unpretentious—when she is without doubt the most beautiful woman I have seen in France—with the exception of her mother, of course. Mademoiselle Liliane takes after you.”

  “Thank you, Prince Mikhail. But my daughter is not sophisticated. She wouldn’t know how to be pretentious. She comes from a completely different world—one which must be understood and handled with tact and gentleness.”

  Was she advising him not to hurt her daughter? He said, somewhat harshly: “Her brother doesn’t always take this precaution.”

  “Claude is another kind. He’s like our French youth, more concerned with material things than with things spiritual. He’s not a bad boy, but he isn’t like Lily, and he gets impatient with her sometimes.”

  “He doesn’t understand what a rare privilege it is for him to have such a sister.”

  Claire regarded him fully. “Quite the contrary,” she murmured. “He knows it only too well.”

  Misha caught the expression in her eyes, and froze. He glanced surreptitiously around him, and the sense of claustrophobia that had enveloped him from the start became more acute, more pressing. He had a feeling that somehow, some way, Claire was asking him to take Lily out of this house, to protect her. At this moment he instinctively glanced around again. Lily was coming in, and behind her came the maître d’hôtel carrying the tea tray.

  She was wearing a “one-hour
dress,” so named for the simplicity of its execution. It had wide, kimono sleeves and a simple skirt that reached the middle of her calf. It was a green dress, and at her ears she wore tiny emeralds. He watched the progression of her legs and had to rise hastily before appearing rude. She’d worn a full-length evening gown the first time, and her shapely calves had been hidden in yellow muslin. She wore her brown hair low over her forehead and ears but tucked into a Psyche knot at the back of her head. Her tallness pleased him again, as it had the first time.

  Lily smiled, but he could see the strain on her face. “Your Excellency,” she said.

  “Mademoiselle Liliane.”

  Lily sat down on the other side of her mother, and the servant disposed the tea tray laden with pastries and the teapot, with a hot-water pot and a pitcher of cream, the sugar bowl and the dish with the cut-up lemon slices. Claire busied herself pouring, and Lily’s eyes, so frank and unassuming, met Misha’s over her mother’s bent head. He thought: She’s exactly what I’ve always needed: the cool poise of a tall lily, to calm my own combustible Russian nature. I’ve only met her once before, but already I know her: she’s honest, she’s modest, and she’s intelligent.

  And Lily thought: He found a way to come that didn’t place him, or me, in checkmate. But I know nothing else about him.

  “I saw your photograph a few nights ago,” he said easily, to test her.

  She looked surprised. “Mine? I don’t understand.”

  “A young man came to interview my father and me. A bright, agreeable young American.” He didn’t want to mention the evening with the two models, and was suddenly afraid that Mark might have mentioned it—and him.

  “Mark MacDonald?” she asked. “We see him quite often.” But she suddenly looked away, and he knew then that she realized Mark’s infatuation. Did she return it? She knew Mark far better than she did him. Mark was attractive. Why shouldn’t she have liked him? He, Misha, hadn’t even made the effort to see her again—until today.

  She handed him his cup of tea, and he noticed that her fingers trembled. He wanted to speak with her, alone. This entire episode was beginning to seem off-key, in 1924. Women slept with men on the first encounter, and here he was, playing a comedy with a demure young virgin and her proper mother. But this was exactly how he had wanted it.

  On an impulse, he turned to Claire and asked: “Madame, would you and Mademoiselle do me the honor of accompanying me to the theater?”

  Claire’s smile touched him. Her eyes, which so rarely reflected her feelings, now shone with a limpid pleasure. “We’d be delighted.”

  “It’s been so long,” Lily added, and he noticed the bright color in her cheeks. “Hasn’t it, Mama?”

  He imagined the two women locked up in the Villa Persane, growing old and dry among the bronze and gilt furniture. “Mademoiselle, is there a particular play you’ve set your heart on?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Romance”

  “Then Romance it is.”

  He sat back, enjoying the Ceylon tea and the small, cream-filled pastries placed at his disposal . . . imagining himself in a soft decor with ashes of roses and dove gray upholstery, Monet and Dufy on the walls, and small wooden Louis XVI tables where she would lay out the tea set, to serve him. He imagined her this way, so young and naïve, but without the line between her brows. To possess this girl in her entirety, to have her be his ...

  Marguery seemed to have shrunk in his black suit, and his dark little eyes looked everywhere but at Claude. There was a soft beading of sweat over his brow.

  “Well?” Claude sat forward, his elbows on his desk, his head supported on the palms of his hands.

  “With Mark MacDonald, everything checks out all right. He’s twenty-four, the older of two sons. His father is a doctor in Charlotte, North Carolina. There’s considerable money from both sides of the family. Mark was educated at the Hill School in Pennsylvania, and at Princeton University—both excellent institutions. He worked as cub reporter on the Clarion, and apparently impressed the city editor. He then was given a by-line with the local society column. Now he’s the Paris correspondent—quite a feat for someone working for a small city paper like the Clarion.”

  “And?”

  “Prince Mikhail Brasilov is a different story. His father is the legendary Ivan Vassilievitch Brasilov, founder of an empire of businesses in Kiev and Moscow. Everything he touched turned to gold. Mikhail was an only child. He grew into a prodigy, finishing the university with two degrees at the age of eighteen. He was always a carouser, however.” Marguery’s nostrils twitched.

  “Most of this is known territory. Please continue.”

  “The Brasilovs came to France in’21. They were able to rebuild their financial position by fortifying the French sugar beet. They live on the Avenue de la Muette—quite sumptuously.”

  “For God’s sake!” Claude cried. “Will you get to the point, Marguery?”

  The little man hesitated. “I’ve never asked before—but why do you need this information?”

  Claude said, through tight lips: “It’s a personal matter, Marguery. A family matter.”

  “I asked only because, to touch such a high-placed, well-connected man as Prince Mikhail . . .”

  “No one will ever know. You won’t be linked to this.”

  “There’s only one black point I was able to discover. But it took me some time and not a little effort to uncover the facts. Prince Mikhail made a most unexpected marriage.”

  Claude leaned forward, amazed.

  “He got married two years ago, shortly after he came here.” He stopped, seeing the incredulous expression on Claude’s face. Then, licking his thin red lips, he plunged ahead: “She’s known as Jeanne Dalbret, one of the dancers in Mistinguett’s revue, Paris qui Danse.”

  “He’s still married?”

  “I could find no divorce decree on file, Monsieur Claude.”

  Chapter 3

  At the dinner table that night, Claire said brightly: “If we aren’t very hungry, it’s because Lily and I had such a charming guest for a well-furnished tea: Prince Mikhail Brasilov.”

  Paul smiled at her above his double chin, but Claude sat up, suddenly tense. “Well done, my girl,” the father said.

  “In fact, he invited us to attend a performance of the play Romance. The Russians really know how to charm people. But I was surprised to find out how warm he is.”

  “They know how to charm, because they take us all for benighted idiots!” Claude said.

  His father turned to look at him, taken aback. His mother said: “There’s nothing supercilious about Prince Mikhail. You led me to believe—”

  “I think it’s splendid my girls are going to go to the theater!” Paul crooned. Lily thought it ironic, and half smiled. She could well remember how she’d begged and pleaded six months ago, and what her father had replied: “All this ridiculous acting is a waste of time and of hard-earned money. I’ll be damned if I let you go, Claire!”

  But suddenly Claude was standing up, trembling. “Lily,” he ordered. “There’s a matter of some delicacy I must discuss at once with Mother and Father. Go to your room.”

  Claire opened her mouth, but Paul glared at her across the table. He spoke up: “Lily, you heard your brother. Some things aren’t for a young girl’s ears.”

  Lily rose, without looking at anyone, and started to walk away. She strode, without hesitation. It didn’t mean anything to her that Claude had dismissed her so curtly. She didn’t wish to waste her time listening to Claude’s dissertations, anyway. At moments like these, she felt more than ever her alienation from her father and brother. She went into the sitting room, and sat, thinking. He wasn’t exactly beautiful, but his large features fit in his wide-boned face, and his legs were so long, so powerful. He’d sat in that chair, talking of this and that, and she’d imagined herself alone with him, in a garden. Imagined his taking her hand, his pulling her toward him. Abruptly she stood up and went to the grand piano in the right-ha
nd corner, and sat on the small stool. Her hands began to hit the keys, and there was a violence unleashed suddenly in the form of music, rich, cascading arias from Bizet. She didn’t even notice when the pins slipped from her Psyche knot and the dark, glossy hair came tumbling down over her shoulders, magnificent and wild. She was angry, excited, oddly exhilarated, alone and apart.

  In the dining room, Claire spoke out: “Claude, you have an extremely disagreeable manner when you speak to your sister.”

  “What’s all this about?” Paul demanded. He detested being interrupted during a meal.

  “It’s about Prince Mikhail. We have to stop considering him for Lily. He took advantage of our goodwill, of Mama’s hospitality, to treat her like a common tramp!”

  “I didn’t see it,” Claire objected.

  “Because you saw him only on the surface. He’s a married man!”

  Claire blinked, stunned. Claude said, his voice a reedy whisper: “He’s married to a dance-hall girl he keeps hidden somewhere.”

  “Then ... I shall have to find a polite way to decline the theater engagement,” Claire murmured.

  Suddenly, Paul stood up, his double chin shaking like gelatin. “No,” he declared, narrowing his eyes. “You’ll go. I want to see exactly how far this man will try to take us. You saw how he received us in his office, Claude—all arrogance, all superiority, as if we were scum to be pushed away with his foot. And why? Does my money smell any different from his? He’s a tradesman, just like the rest of us, even with his fine aristocratic airs. This isn’t Russia, and he shouldn’t feel so confident. I’ll catch him, and then, Claude, we’ll crush him.”

  Claire shivered, and closed her eyes.

  Misha was not overly interested in the play. Certainly it was charming, but he’d seen his share of charming plays all over the European continent. He was dying for a cigarette, but the two women didn’t smoke, and so he concentrated on watching them while they watched the stage.