Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [114]
Lydie walked into the château, along a corridor, into the kitchen. Kelly, in her black uniform with its starched white collar, caught sight of her, tried to escape through another door. They had already faced each other today, true, but in Patrice’s presence, which was another matter entirely. Something about Patrice encouraged best behavior.
“Kelly!” Lydie called, hearing herself bellow. Kelly stopped short, turned shyly.
“Hello, Lydie,” Kelly said. She wouldn’t meet Lydie’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” Lydie asked.
“I am fine,” Kelly said. Chefs and servers bustled around them; the air crackled with oysters being opened, vegetables sliced, crab claws cracked, roasts sizzling. Saying nothing, Lydie put her arm around Kelly’s shoulders and led her down the long hallway, into the back room where boots and guns and the morning’s grouse were hanging.
“I apologize for failing,” Kelly said when they were alone.
“But you didn’t fail,” Lydie said, astonished. As she spoke, she realized that neither of them had, that it was a failure, or perhaps, worse, a triumph of bureaucracy.
“I did, Lydie. I failed in my interview. I am not qualified to be an alien of distinguished merit. I am not of the caliber to live in the States.” Her face was ashen, her eyes blank.
Lydie thought of what Patrice had said, that Kelly would feel bad tonight, better tomorrow. She stared at Kelly, wanted to believe it was true. “Oh, Kelly,” she said, helpless.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Lydie,” Kelly said sternly, the same tone Lydie had heard her use months ago, when she had told Lydie the story of crossing the border in the trunk of a car.
But Lydie felt worse than sorry for her. She believed she had brought Kelly to this point in her life, where dreams came to nothing. She felt intense sorrow. What’s happening to me? she wondered, panicked, as if the feeling came from an outside force instead of circumstances of the night.
She turned to Kelly, who stared stonily into the distance. Kelly, who had represented hope to Lydie, had none of her own left. Again Lydie thought of the young Fallons, Julia and Neil, leaving Rosslare Harbor, and she knew she had Kelly to thank for making it possible to imagine her parents as hopeful people starting off on a long journey. And feeling tears well up in her eyes, Lydie wished all three journeys hadn’t ended in despair.
The open door gave onto the lawn. Lydie had an impulse to run out and not look back. She gazed at the crowd, laughing and brilliant in costumes and jewels. The orchestra struck up a waltz. Hordes of guests poured onto the dance floor. They whirled around, under the canopy of chestnut leaves and flickering candles. She felt hypnotized by emotion, by the movement and music. The area around the dance floor was practically empty, and her eyes took in the few people standing there.
Michael stood apart, whispering to a woman in period dress. Lydie started toward him, but she held herself back. She peered at Michael, in his white jacket, and at the woman, very tiny. The woman wore a wig that might have been lifted from the head of a mannequin in the Louvre and a black velvet dress full of silver thread; Lydie recognized the style as seventeenth-century.
“That’s Anne Dumas,” Lydie said out loud.
“What?” Kelly asked. She started toward Lydie, but Lydie was backing away.
Lydie bumped right into the wall, stood there for a moment staring out the door. She felt her lips moving, and she knew the words they were saying were a form of prayer. She felt a breeze move her full skirt; it might have been the passage of ghosts. Not eighteenth-century ghosts from the château, but recent ghosts. Ghosts of people she had loved, from two years ago and from today, begging Lydie to lay them to rest. The solution came to her like a gift, in a flash.
Trembling, tears running down her cheeks, Lydie lifted Didier’s gun off the rack. She aimed it at Anne and Michael, just the way Patrice had taught