‘Oh, I see.’ He laughed. ‘Yes, it is. Someone recommended Jane Austen to me and I’m hooked. Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion—that’s my favorite so far.’
‘It’s mine too. Quite a delightful book. It’s poignant too, of course, when one thinks of it in terms of Jane Austen’s own life, but life-affirming nevertheless. Don’t you think? It’s never too late to make amends for the wrongs of the past.’
He hadn’t given much thought to why he liked the book, but maybe it was that—the hope it offered for the future, no matter how blighted the past.
‘You really believe that, that it’s never too late?’
‘I do indeed. I’ve seen it, just as I’ve seen people live their lives full of regret, never dreaming there might still be time to do something about it. What a sad way to be going on.’
‘I suppose it is.’
She smiled. ‘And tell me, dear, are you on your own here? That’s a terrible shame.’
‘I’m used to traveling alone. It’s a business trip.’
‘Even so.’
He wasn’t sure she believed him and didn’t want to be pressed, so he deflected her concern by saying, ‘Are you not traveling alone yourself?’
‘Goodness, no. My husband’s taken an early night after rather overdoing it last night. And my son and his wife have taken a night cruise on the Seine. Maybe you’ll meet them; I’m expecting them back any time now.’
‘Actually, I’m turning in shortly. I have a busy day tomorrow.’ The conversation had been pleasant enough, but he didn’t much want to meet the next generation, people who might be more inclined to ask him what he did and whether he had a family, and wouldn’t he join them for a drink or dinner—it was all too much contact.
‘Oh. Well, never mind.’ Again she had that look about her as though she’d seen right through him. ‘Thank you for chatting anyway.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Thank Jane Austen.’ He smiled and took his leave, pleased to have concluded the conversation before they’d exchanged names.
He felt good about himself afterwards too. It would have been nothing to most people but to engage in any spontaneous social interaction was a departure for him. And he felt good about the things she’d said, filling him with a determination to follow the only logical course: to speak to Madeleine.
He’d changed in fifteen years and she would have, too. He’d always imagined her holding on to all that anger and bitterness, but time would have mollified her; it had to have. He’d talk to her and she’d see that he was someone she could deal with again.
The next morning he was less confident. He’d found a space a little closer to the house and watched as the sun slowly heated up the street. His aim was to wait until the girl went out, and then to go over and ring the bell.
That was the idea, but elderly ladies and the works of Jane Austen were one thing; walking back into his past was another. In the harsh morning light, he couldn’t help but think Madeleine would see his return as just another betrayal of trust, one that would bring back whatever memories she’d buried.
He didn’t know how he’d ever thought that renouncing his former life would be enough for her. And now he feared that if he walked over to that house it might be to have the door close in his face forever.
He’d arrived at about twenty past nine and he’d started to think they might all have gone out early or even left the city, but just after ten a woman in her twenties came out and walked up the street past his car.
She was carrying a folder under one arm and looked like a student. Without much to go on other than instinct and the way she looked, Lucas reckoned on her being a music teacher. And because of her age he came to the further unfounded conclusion that there were younger kids in the house.
Madeleine would have had their daughter learn an instrument—the piano, he hoped, like she had—but at fourteen, her tuition wouldn’t be entrusted to someone so young. If she was a music teacher, then some younger child of Madeleine’s had just spent an hour practicing the violin or piano, whatever.
Locked out of those details, he had an exile-driven curiosity. For the next half an hour, he built pictures of the life being lived behind that door, populating his memory of the grand house with various imagined families, all of them with Madeleine at the centre.
Then a car pulled up and sounded its horn. He trained the camera on the driver but couldn’t see beyond the reflection on the windshield. Shifting his aim toward the door, he caught the girl coming out, smiling, jumping into the back of the car.