Miramont's Ghost (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

T
he air in the castle sparked with electrical energy, like the air before a thunderstorm. The hair on the back of Adrienne’s neck stood on end. Butlers and maids flew around the rooms, their faces creased with tension. The whole estate was in the last stages of being polished and groomed, as if they were expecting visiting royalty.

Things were no better when Adrienne went down to dinner. The maid seemed to be all jitters and nerves, and she splashed a drop of water on the white linen tablecloth as she moved to fill their glasses. Adrienne watched as her hands began to shake. Her eyes jumped. The pitcher nearly slipped from her grasp.

“What’s wrong with you?” Marie snapped, her lips and brow and forehead creased with irritation. “Can you not pour water?”

“Désolé, madame.”
The maid’s face fell.

“Maman?” Adrienne leaned forward, staring across the table at her mother. “Why are you sitting there?” As long as Adrienne could remember, her grand-père had sat at one end of the long table, and her mother at the other.

Genevieve did not answer. Her eyes fluttered nervously to her older sister, and back to some invisible spot on the tablecloth. “I . . .”

Marie held her spoon perfectly still, arrested in its strategic assault on the soup. “There are rules, Adrienne. When your grand-mère was alive, this was her seat. Since she is no longer with us, and I am the oldest daughter, I am now the head of the household.”

Grand-père cleared his throat at the other end of the table.

Marie glanced at him. “The female head of the household, that is. When I’m not here, your mother is allowed to take my place.”

Genevieve lowered her head, and slumped in her seat as if she had been beaten with a club.

Adrienne bent her head and sipped from her soup, thinking how different the two sisters were. Through her eyelashes, she watched her mother, sitting with her head bowed, directly across the table. Genevieve looked like a jewel, the candlelight sparkling in her golden hair and blue eyes. She seemed the perfect match for the sapphire necklace around her throat. Her dress was a lustrous blue silk. The mound of her tummy under the silk only added to her glow. Everything about Genevieve glittered.

Marie, on the other hand, looked more like a piece of coal. She was petite, with a head of dark curls, gray sprouting at the temples. Her eyes were the color of steel and had the same hard, unyielding quality. Despite the fact that her husband had been dead for over a decade, she continued to wear the dreary black, unadorned crepe of mourning. Everything about her was dull and hard.

“Are you accustomed to staring at your elders, Adrienne?” Marie reproached the child.

“No, madame.” Adrienne dropped her eyes to her soup bowl. Her ravishing hunger of an hour before was disappearing quickly in the tense atmosphere.

Both of the comte’s daughters had been raised with wealth and power, but Marie wore it differently. On Genevieve, it looked like a decoration, a tiara that made her even more becoming. On Marie, it was more like a weapon, an axe she wielded to get exactly what she wanted. Those privileges had filled the shell of her being and flowed into every part of her. The way she tilted her head slightly when Grand-père spoke, the way her fingers held her wineglass, the way her shoulders were thrown back, all spoke of a woman who was accustomed to having her way, and entitled to whatever she wanted. She made certain that everyone knew of her position, whether as the daughter of the comte, the wife of a French diplomat, or now as the mother of the chancellor to the archbishop in the largest diocese in the New World.

Marie sipped her soup. “Don’t you think she’s rather young to be allowed at the dinner table, Genevieve?”

Genevieve’s eyes flitted about like butterflies, darting first to Marie, then to Adrienne, then landing, once again, on the middle of the table. “Well, I . . .” she stammered, unable to finish her thought.

“She is, for the time being at least, an only child,” Grand-père said. “I see nothing wrong with her joining us.”

“Julien was an only child,” Marie responded. “We never allowed him to join us at table at such a young age.”

No one responded. The family kept their heads down, focused on their food. The only sounds were the spoons tinkling against the soup bowls, the swallows and slurps of eating.

“I cannot imagine how we would have managed, had his father allowed him at table. Diplomacy is an art; it requires finesse. Children must be old enough to understand the subtleties.” She stared at Adrienne, as if it were quite obvious that Adrienne would never grasp subtleties.

“Fortunately, Marie, none of us is in the diplomatic corps,” Grand-père said. “No kings and queens at this dinner table.” His eyes crinkled at the corners, and Adrienne sent him a shy smile.

Marie ignored the comment. “Of course, once Julien reached the proper age—I believe he was around ten or so—his father allowed him to join us. Gave him exactly the training and experience and background he would need to be a renowned diplomat himself.” Marie tipped her head to one side, took a bite of her roll. She looked down her nose at Adrienne, and Adrienne turned her face back to her own meal.

“Yes. After all that training, how unfortunate that he chose the priesthood instead.” The comte and Marie stared at one another, as if he had just fired the first shot in the next round of battle between them. The subject of her son and his work was a sore spot with Marie.

Marie bristled. His comment took her back to so much that she would rather forget. Her marriage to Jacques Morier had been arranged by the families, and had been, at least to the outside world, very successful. She was only eighteen at the time and was overjoyed at the prospect of leaving her father and Genevieve behind. Jacques worked in the diplomatic corps of the French government. They traveled extensively, dined with nobility, stayed at all the finest places in Europe. Marie reveled in the life of diplomacy. It served her love of power and prestige and control.

Privately, though, the marriage did not live up to its promise. After their important guests had left for the evening, the air between the two of them was icy and quiet. Jacques escaped into the arms of his many mistresses as often as he could.

Marie tolerated his philandering. He was discreet; she was a good Catholic. Divorce was unthinkable. She had exactly what she wanted. She relished the influence and status that being the wife of a diplomat afforded her. That was much more valuable to her than the relationship itself.

But he abandoned her completely when he died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-seven. She missed their travels, the dinners hosting heads of state. She missed the control she had once wielded in European political circles. She missed the importance of his position, and the way that importance transferred to her. But she did not miss him.

And for the second time in her life, death had left her deserted by someone she had relied on. Jacques’s death brought back all the instability and fear she had felt at the death of her mother and the neglect of her grieving father. Once again, she was forced to make her own way in the world, to figure things out without anyone to help her. It solidified her belief that the only person she could rely on was herself, that it was only through absolute control that she would survive. She was compelled to return to her childhood home at Beaulieu, to live with her sister, Genevieve, that golden-haired beauty who had captured all the attention and all the sympathy after the death of their mother. It grated on Marie, this fall from power, this loss of prestige. She was determined that it would never happen again, no matter what that might take.

She turned all her skills, all her power, manipulation, and control, to their only son, Julien. He was thirteen when his father died, devastated by the loss. Marie was determined that he, too, would become a diplomat, and return her to her rightful place at the tables of European power. Julien did as he was told. He studied in Paris, did well in school. And just as he neared the fulfillment of her dream, Julien, too, suddenly rebelled.

On his own, he would never have gone against his mother’s wishes, never have had the courage to mutiny. But just before he was scheduled to finish his diplomatic studies at university, Julien announced that he was entering the priesthood. He said it was God who called him. Marie could not argue with God; he was the one being outside her sphere of influence. The young man insisted that God called him to give up his diplomatic studies and attend seminary at Clermont.

When Archbishop Lamy, himself a graduate of Clermont, recruited Julien for the archdiocese in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Julien jumped at the opportunity. It was half a world away from Marie. But his escape was short-lived. She had joined him in Santa Fe less than a year after he left France.

The comte rested his fork on his plate and watched as his eldest daughter fought to control her emotions. He could not remember a time when they had been only father and daughter. He and Marie were like opponents in a game of chess, each searching for the other’s weakness, ready to use it to advantage should the need arise.

Marie’s gaze locked on his for a moment. She dropped her eyes to her plate, and raised them again. The glare was gone; her training had returned. “He could not have chosen more wisely, as it turns out. I know Archbishop Lamy is very grateful to have someone of Julien’s high caliber to help him. The place is so desperately in need.” Marie’s perfectly composed features bent slightly to take in a bite of the veal.

The comte fought off a flicker of a smile. This reminded him of the battlefield when he was a young man, or a serious game of poker, predicated on the ability to make your opponent believe something that may or may not be true. The comte took a deep breath. He knew well all the subtleties of the game. “And how do you like the West? Is it true, everything we’ve heard? Indians on the rampage and all of that?”

“It is still very rough, that’s true, but it has improved a great deal since the archbishop first went there. Most of the Indian tribes are confined now—on reservations. Of course, there are still Indian attacks, but not nearly as often as ten years ago. And the journey across the continent is much easier now as well. They just finished building the railroad into Santa Fe. Before that, everything had to travel by wagon.” Marie took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “The archbishop told us all kinds of stories about the trips he made, by wagon train, across the prairie, through Indian territories. I cannot even imagine how difficult
that
must have been. I found the trip quite arduous even on the train, and of course, I never had to face those ghastly Indian horrors.

“But the archbishop did it several times. On one of his trips, he had a wagonload of items for the church in Santa Fe—things that had been donated by all his supporters here in France. They crossed a river, swollen with spring runoff, and the wagon was swept away. He lost almost everything. It is amazing that he survived. Even so, he has been able, over the years, to bring so many fine things back with him. Books. Proper dishes. Silver and crystal for the church altar. He even managed to haul in plants for his garden. You should see what he has done with the church gardens! I guess it does give one hope that the place can ultimately be civilized.” Marie took a sip of her wine, and swooped the wineglass out in front of her with a flourish. It was evident that she loved being the center of attention, being the one who had all the interesting stories.

Genevieve sat silently, her eyes traveling back and forth between her father and her older sister. She did not attempt to speak; she broached no questions about the New World.

“God knows they need every bit of culture and refinement that he can manage. But the archbishop is getting older . . . I’m afraid he’s not as strong as he needs to be for such work. It’s a good thing he has Julien there to help him now.”

Marie tipped her head to one side, and cut another bite of her veal.

“What is Santa Fe like? Is it much like here?” The comte was fascinated with all subjects related to Julien’s station in the New World, from the flora and fauna in the mountains of New Mexico Territory to the history of the tribes that lived along the Rio Grande.

“I felt dirty the whole time I was there,” Marie said. “Dirt streets. Dirt floors. Houses made of mud bricks. Everything is always coated in dust, except for those rare occasions when it rains. Then everything is coated in mud. I never thought I could be so grateful for a rough plank floor.” Marie raised her wineglass once again, her eyes sparkling.

Adrienne had lost track of the conversation; she was no longer paying attention to the people at the table. She studied the water goblet in front of her plate. Light rays from the candles hit the crystal and bounced in different directions. She stared at the amber light, pulled into the strange new world that opened before her. She lost track of where she was; she could no longer hear Marie’s words. Rays of sunlight poured through a bank of gray clouds and onto the dirt streets of Santa Fe. Adrienne could see the snowcapped mountains behind the town; she could smell the faint whiff of piñon and sage and juniper, even though she would not have been able to name what they were.

Her vision showed her the little mud houses, some of them surrounded by fences made of thin branches, standing upright. She heard the creak of wagon wheels, the clop of horses’ hooves. She watched the dark-haired women, wrapped in woolen shawls, as they moved along the streets.

The street curved to the right, and Adrienne’s eyes grew huge. She smiled at the scene that unfolded before her. “Is that where the little church is? The one with the round staircase and the big colored-glass window?”

Marie stopped, her fork poised in midair. “You mean the Chapel of Loretto?”

Marie cut another bite of her veal, not waiting for an answer. “It’s not far from the cathedral the archbishop is building. He’s had a struggle, poor man, finding enough money to keep going. The sisters, though—they were able to get their little chapel built fairly quickly.” Marie seemed lost in her own story. She did not notice Adrienne.