He came and knelt at my bedside. I reached out to stroke that little tuft of blond hair that spiked up at the crown of his head despite his applications of a delightful smelling pomade, purchased in London, I knew, from a firm called Trumper.
“My love, my only love,” was what he said to me as he offered me the long blue leather box, inscribed with the name of a famous Parisian jeweler who, I knew, designed for royalty.
Forgetting all about modesty in my excitement, I accepted the box and with first a long smiling glance at my young lover, I clicked it open.
It was lined in velvet, a dark violet color, across which lay a rope of evenly matched pearls in a true mouthwatering cream. Each pearl shone with a deep luster, and when I looked more carefully I saw each one was a tiny bit different, a slope to one side of the bead, another a little rounder, yet the whole absolutely perfect. The clasp was a lion’s head in gold, catching a pearl ball in its open mouth.
It was perfection. More, it was a gift from a man who truly loved me. Our tears mingled as he slipped the rope of pearls over my head, smoothed them over my breasts, kissed my neck where the golden clasp lay.
“I would like to marry you,” he said, his voice gentle yet strong.
Of course I knew he would, right that minute, that is, and I would have liked to marry him, but one of us had to be sensible, face facts, even at an emotional moment like this, when his declaration came with a fortune in pearls.
I allowed my mind to drift from the reality of who I was, to pretend for a few minutes that I was a real titled lady, that we lived together in his English manor house, with a cook in the kitchen and a nanny in the nursery taking care of our three children, a boy and two girls, and the two of us, ever young, ever in love … Dreams are like that. They can ruin reality.
I realized I was stepping on our dream when I smiled and thanked him with a million kisses for the pearls, assured him I would love him forever, when the truth, known only to myself, of course, was that I was never absolutely sure I loved him, or knew even what love was. I knew only that I cared deeply for him, that I admired him, that I loved his body, his eager youthfulness, that tuft of hair that sprang from the crown of his head. I loved his charm. But I knew it could not last.
I wore those pearls for the year we lived together, but the even greater gift he gave me was his love. And beyond that, even more of a miracle to a young woman like myself who had never known a true “home,” who had never owned property, never thought to do more than pay rent for a fashionable house in Paris. He built me the Villa Romantica.
38
Of course the villa was not there yet, but we drove together to the place it would be, in that lovely Delage, chauffeur in gray uniform at the wheel, champagne chilling in the silver bucket, flowers fresh each morning in the silver vases, always lily of the valley. I remember the scent so clearly across all these years. And thank God, I also remember what young love felt like.
The Villa Romantica took a mere twelve months to build, mainly because of my insisting that I intended to occupy it in the New Year when I would hold a party in celebration—a costume party, with every guest masked, the women in feathers, the men in black silk. I had no idea what kind of omen this might represent. And why should I?
I almost fell for the inevitable Marie Antoinette costume but caught myself just in time, realizing there would be at least a dozen others in the same powdered wigs and billowing skirts. I went for the Cinderella look instead; the most charming silken rags in cream and coffee and a touch of raspberry to set off my red hair that I wore not in its usual braid but wrapped round and round my head in a great fiery swirl, studded with the sort of large diamond pins the true Cinderella would never have seen, until she captured her prince, that is. And maybe not even then. After all, we don’t really know the ending of that story, do we? Not the way you are about to know the ending of this one.
Let me tell first how wonderful my Villa Romantica looked, pale pink against a midnight blue sky, lanterns hanging from the branches of the newly planted, though mature, trees that looked as though they had been there forever.