The Pleasure Seekers (31 page)

That was the flat part of her drive. Now, only a few hours later, she was in the Berkshire Hills, or the Berkshires as Brett and most everyone else seemed to call
them. How beautiful the scenery was, so different from Crete, so lush and green and full of the last of the coloured leaves. The sound and the sight of the rushing mountain streams along the side of the road as you climbed and climbed this southern extension of the Green Mountains of Vermont. The dappled light sending spots of colour and patches of shade over the road for D’Arcy to drive through, Nature’s confetti.

It was always more fun to arrive at Brett’s birthday party on the day and give her a better surprise, so when D’Arcy arrived in Lenox, only a matter of minutes from the house Falcon’s Lair, she decided to remain the night there at the inn. It was seven in the evening when she checked in and reserved a table for dinner. The proprietor recognised her and made D’Arcy feel very much at home. One of the reasons she loved small towns was the lack of subtlety their residents showed. ‘Here for the party, I guess?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Have any other of my mother’s guests arrived?’ The overflow usually stayed at the inn.

‘Been very quiet so far, but you know what your mother’s parties are like, we could have a full house yet. Charlotte over at The Flower Box says she’s got at least two carloads of flower orders that have arrived already. Come from all over the world, they have. One way or another, looks to me like it’s going to be a big birthday celebration this year, Miss Montesque,’ Mr Peabody responded before handing her a key to a room.

The Montesques were a big name in the Lenox, Stockbridge area, having been one of the first settler families there when the town was incorporated in 1767.
Although having grown up there, Brett was practically a newcomer but her surname still carried weight. The daughter of Averill Montesque had always been a legend for having run away from home to Europe, never to return. Now that Falcon’s Lair was hers, her eccentricities along with her generosity to the town were accepted as the norm. Legend is like fame – if it goes on long enough and is subtle enough for a New England town to handle it is always acceptable. It adds to its history.

No one was surprised that Brett had named her children after great romantic heroes of literary novels. They liked and respected her for it. They liked the eccentricity of it since in the nineteenth century Lenox had been a literary centre, home for a time to the American writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Catharine Sedgwick, Edith Wharton, and others the townspeople still liked boasting about. They took Brett’s ways in their stride with a certain degree of pride in the same way as they took having the estate of Tanglewood as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The concerts brought the town more renown and interesting visiting artists, and so did Brett Montesque and her children.

D’Arcy, on the visits she had made at various times of the year to Falcon’s Lair, had found things here – a lost childhood, grandparents that never were, a family estate representing financial security and a certain stability – that she had never missed. It was always great fun for her to be here, like stepping into someone else’s life for a few days or weeks. But the times she loved it most was when she was there with Brett and her fathers for Brett’s birthday party.

In the morning she dressed in the same suede skirt and jacket that she had worn those last days she had spent with Max. She looked at herself in the mirror and was not displeased. The bloom of love for him was still in her face. The days and nights of sexual bliss in his arms were much more than memory – they were now a part of her life. And sexual fulfilment and love at the same time, no matter how brief it had been, had made her look and feel more beautiful than she could ever have imagined herself to be. That fate might deem it should never happen to her again on such a scale seemed to her out of the question. But where was Max?

She had a leisurely breakfast of sausages and pancakes dripping with home-made butter and the best Vermont maple syrup, black coffee, then unbelievably finished her repast with a chunky hot apple sauce with thick double cream. You never knew when you would get to eat at Brett’s birthday parties, or what you would eat, only that the food would be sublime because Brett hadn’t cooked it. She was a terrible cook, but she had a French chef who wasn’t.

D’Arcy had the top of her rented car down and the radio turned on quite loud, Luciano Pavarotti singing
Don Giovanni,
as she slowly drove through the stunningly lush and beautiful terrain and past several great estates such as Shadowbrooke, the home the industrialist Andrew Carnegie had built at the turn of the century. Most of those robber baron estates were broken up or given over to educational institutions now but all kept their beauty and buildings pretty much intact.

Falcon’s Lair was one of those estates, only it had
never been broken up, and had never been given over to any institution. It was strictly private and not very well kept up, which seemed to add to its charm. D’Arcy turned off the main road and through the open rusting gates hung on pillars topped with handsome stone urns draped in garlands of stone flowers. The sun was out and there was little wind, but enough to rustle the leaves on the trees. The scent of autumn was in the air. The road was rutted but had been cleared of broken branches and the fallen leaves spun up around the wheels of her car as she sped over it towards the house.

There it was, the first sight of Falcon’s Lair, a great beautiful rambling white wooden house with turrets and bay windows and an enormous porch going all around it. Black louvred shutters stood open and pinned back on either side of each of the many windows and doors. Falcon’s Lair sat on the top of a ridge and against the side of a hill overlooking a wooded terrain sparsely dotted with mansions and grand estates. It looked glorious, all forty-two rooms of it. The dirt road was now a gravel drive and wound up and up, past the tennis courts and the 1920s swimming pool flanked by stone lions. D’Arcy felt terribly excited to be there, even more so than usual.

She had already passed more than a dozen cars parked on the gravel but no one seemed to be in sight. She drove the car up to the main entrance to the house and honked her horn. She turned off the radio and cut the car’s engine. She could hear music coming from the house, Chopin, someone was playing the piano. She closed her eyes and listened for a few minutes. Such passionate and romantic music. She was so lost in it
she missed hearing footsteps on the gravel. Finally she opened her eyes.

He was standing next to her at the car door, watching her. Why wasn’t she surprised? Because it felt so right that he should be there. She sighed, was so filled with emotion that tears came to her eyes. Max opened the car door and helped her out. He took her in his arms, and they kissed. He fumbled with her jacket and opened it, found her naked breasts and caressed and kissed them, then closed her jacket and found her lips and they kissed again. He stroked her hair and wiped the tears from her cheeks as he whispered to her, ‘This is no time for tears. Every day away from you was a year of my life. I had to go. Schawahan’s father was in trouble, he needed me, and I owed him. I knew you would be all right.’

‘I love you, Max.’

‘Well, that’s a good thing because I’ve come to ask the family for your hand in marriage.’ With those words he opened her hand and dropped a large square-cut diamond into its palm. ‘A gift of love from me, and thanks and good wishes from Schawahan’s father.’

They kissed again, several times, and when she finally recovered herself from being dazzled by the diamond and his intentions, she asked him, ‘Max, don’t you think you should ask me first?’

A look of fright came into his eyes, he actually paled for a few seconds. She saw his distress, that it had never occurred to him that she might say anything other than yes. She could hardly bear to see the look of anguish on his face. D’Arcy took his hands in hers and raised them to her lips to kiss them. She said, ‘Yes, please marry me.’
The relief on his face was instant and a smile that warmed her soul appeared on his lips. They kissed once more and then started up the stairs to the front door.

They were all there, all the family: Brett, D’Arcy’s fathers, Rhett, Vronsky, Abelard, several of her mother’s friends. Everyone seemed to converge on them at once with greetings and kisses. D’Arcy needed no one to tell her that Max had arranged it all, had made sure they were all together. She looked at him and he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Her first words to Brett after she had wished her a happy birthday were said, as D’Arcy opened her hand and displayed the magnificent gem lying in its palm: ‘Brett, would you and the dads mind if I broke with the tradition of this family and got married – married Max?’