Chapter 14

Bettina would have been sadder to leave the Margaux after staying with them in Paris for five months, but she knew she would be returning soon. She and Louis were planning to stay in San Francisco for a few weeks, long enough for him to meet her family and ask her father properly for her hand in marriage, and then they would travel back across the country and return to Paris by ship. It was a long journey to make, and Louis needed to be back for work at the end of August. When they got back, Angélique wanted to give a party for them, to celebrate their marriage. Louis was a discreet person, but he was well liked and had many friends, and Bettina had met a number of people in Paris that she liked too.

Louis’s parents had a house on the Place François Premier that they no longer used since they had retired to their château in Dordogne, and Louis wanted to move into their old home in the city with her. He was living in a small bachelor apartment now. His parents’ house was perfect for them and Lili.

And in the meantime, Bettina was leaving two of her trunks with Angélique and Robert. All she was taking was what she needed for the boat, and a few things for when she was at home in San Francisco. They would be away for only five or six weeks, and after that, Paris would be her home forever. She missed her parents, but her life in France was so much more interesting and more exciting, and she liked knowing that Lili would grow up there. Louis spoke English, but he preferred speaking to both of them in French. It seemed hard to believe that she had left San Francisco five months before, and her whole life had changed.

She hoped that her father would approve of Louis and the marriage, and that her grandmother wouldn’t make a fuss because he was French. She had warned him that her grandmother was very opinionated and eccentric, and that her great-uncle lived with them and was even more so, but she didn’t tell him that the house was full of ghosts and the people who lived there never seemed to leave. Even if they died, they came back, and nothing changed. She didn’t want him to think that her family was strange before he met them. This was her chance to have a normal, happy life, and she didn’t want anything to spoil it. And there was always the risk that the ghosts wouldn’t appear at all, which might be simpler.

Their crossing to New York on the ship was almost like a honeymoon for them, except that they were in separate staterooms. He was very respectful of her. Having understood that her previous conjugal life had lasted for exactly one night, he didn’t want to press her for more than they had until they were married. There would be time enough to discover each other then. He could hardly wait. She was so young and beautiful that he felt like a very lucky man. And he was acquiring a daughter too. He was wonderful to her as well.

On the ship, they dined with the captain, talked to people on deck, played shuffleboard, lay in the sunshine, swam in the pool with Lili, talked for hours on deck chairs, and went dancing every night. Bettina had never been happier in her life. She even enjoyed Lili more, knowing that she had provided a father for her who would love them both. The burden of motherhood that had seemed so weighty to her before, seemed lighter now that she knew that it would be shared. And she was relieved that he didn’t want more children. He was the perfect spouse for her.

When they docked in New York, they stayed at the Plaza again, and took the train to California the next morning, in three first-class compartments, as they had done on the ship. The journey was tedious and long, and Lili was fussy. At nineteen months, she was running everywhere by then, and hated being confined in the small compartment. Louis walked her up and down the passageway with the nurse, when Bettina took her afternoon rest.

In San Francisco, they were getting ready for her return, thinking she was coming home to stay. She had given them no warning that she was going to be there for only a short time, and that the guest she was bringing home was important. They wondered who it was, but all Gwyneth could think about was Lili. She couldn’t wait to have her granddaughter home again. Their five-month absence had seemed interminable to her. It had been a long summer. The Gregorys had rented a house in Maine for two months for their annual vacation, and they weren’t due back until the end of August. Andy was going straight back to Edinburgh from the East Coast, and Caroline was flying directly to Los Angeles. Quinne was with them, and Magnus missed Charlie terribly. Everyone at the Butterfields’ house had been bored without the Gregorys and Bettina, particularly Josiah, who had been reading novels to Lucy at night, for lack of anything else to do, and missed his conversations with Bettina.

The family had gone to the house in Woodside briefly in July, but it was tiresome there too. They’d been happy to get back to the city, and Gwyneth wanted the house to look beautiful when Bettina got home. The day they were due to arrive, she put vases of fresh flowers everywhere, and the house was fragrant with the scent. She had cut them from the garden and arranged them herself.

“You’d think we were expecting a royal visit, instead of your daughter,” Augusta complained, but she was excited too. Angus had offered to meet the train and pipe them in, but Augusta had convinced him not to, and to wait for them at the house. It was a foggy day and chilly, as San Francisco tended to be in the summer, and she didn’t want him to catch a cold. “Who’s she bringing, by the way?” Augusta asked her daughter again, thinking she might know by then, but it was a mystery to them all. Bettina had just said “a friend,” and her mother assumed it was some nice woman she’d met in Paris who was coming to stay for a month or two, as people did from Europe, because it was so far to come for a shorter visit.

Gwyneth was pacing the halls around the time Bettina was expected to be there. She had wanted to go to the train station in Oakland, but there would be so much confusion with all their trunks and bags that they had sent the chauffeur with the car, and the carriage and coachman, and had agreed to meet at the house. Bert had come home early, and was excited too. Augusta and Angus were playing a card game in the drawing room, Josiah and Lucy were watching, and Magnus was up to some sort of mischief in the garden. The whole family was there, waiting for her.

And then, finally, they heard the car pull up in front of the house, and the carriage wheels, and they all ran outside to greet her. Bettina was the first one out of the car, wearing a white linen suit and a huge hat she’d bought in Paris. She looked very stylish. The nurse was carrying Lili and stepped out right behind her, as Gwyneth rushed forward to hug them, and Bert was beaming. Louis stepped out of the car last in a dark suit and a homburg, looking very much like the banker he was, and he smiled, watching the scene of Bettina in the arms of her family. They hadn’t even noticed him until the grande old dame stood at the top of the stairs to the house and stared him into the ground, her fierce scowl suggesting he didn’t belong there. She normally would have disappeared with a stranger among them, but she stood visible and undaunted.

“Bettina!” she said in a booming voice that would have carried for miles. “Who is that?” As Bettina heard her, she looked up and smiled at her grandmother, pleased to see her so clearly, and ran up the stairs lightly to hug her, and then hugged her brother and sister and great-uncle right after her father. She turned to glance in the direction her grandmother was pointing and saw Louis behind her, waiting discreetly before he approached. Bert gazed at his daughter and then at the man in the hat and dark suit with a question in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Bettina remembered her manners immediately, beckoned to Louis, and introduced him to her parents. “Louis de Lambertin, may I present my parents, Bertrand and Gwyneth Butterfield.” She smiled proudly and Gwyneth took her in her arms again and held her, to make sure she was real. “I wrote to you that he was coming,” she reminded them, because the entire family looked stunned to see Louis. They just stood there and stared.

“You didn’t tell us you were bringing a gentleman,” her mother said gently, “you only said ‘a friend.’ ”

“I thought it was better for you to meet him,” Bettina said, since she wanted the reason for his being there to be a surprise.

Louis shook Bert’s hand, and Angus’s, and bowed low over her mother’s and grandmother’s hands to kiss them, and then he shook hands with Josiah, who greeted him warmly. Nothing about their appearance or behavior would have suggested that Josiah, Angus, Augusta, and Magnus were not alive. They looked, felt, and behaved entirely real. Only if they did their disappearing act would one know, and Bettina was going to warn them not to while Louis was there.

“Why don’t we go inside and have some tea?” Gwyneth suggested, smiling politely at Louis and engaging him in conversation as they walked in. Bettina could see that the house looked beautiful and was filled with flowers. She was very proud of her home, just as Louis was of his family’s château in France. And his father had agreed to let them move into the house on the Place François Premier in Paris once they were married. He couldn’t wait to show it to Bettina when they went back. It wasn’t a palace, or as large as Bettina’s home, but Louis’s city home was a very handsome house. And the château was huge, daunting, ice cold, and nearly impossible to heat. But his parents lived there, and Louis only went there a few times a year.

“Is he French?…He must be French,” Augusta was saying. “Did you see him kiss my hand? No self-respecting Englishman would do that.” Louis was smiling at what he overheard, and was tempted to do it again to shock the old lady. Despite his restrained exterior, he had a sense of humor.

Gwyneth handed him a cup of tea as they sat in the drawing room, and she asked if he took milk and sugar or lemon, and he said plain. The moment Bert observed him more closely and how he and Bettina spoke to each other, he knew why Louis was there. There could only be one reason why he had come so far. And now Bert wanted to know who he was. He whispered a question to Bettina, and she smiled and nodded.

“You could have warned us,” he scolded her.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said innocently and looked very young.

“Well, it certainly is.” He took her aside and led her into the library, while Gwyneth chatted with Louis in conversation with the others. So far, it was all polite, banal repartee.

Once he had her alone in the library, Bert looked at his daughter seriously. “All right, who is he and how do you know him? How did you meet? Who are his parents, and does he have any? He seems rather old for you,” he said sternly.

“He’s a lovely person, Father. You’ll love him. He’s a banker like you. He’s French. He has a house in Paris, and a château in Dordogne, or his family does. I met him through the Margaux. They like him very much, and I love him. We want to get married.”

“You didn’t ask me last time,” he reminded her. “Why now?” he asked, still a little miffed over Tony.

“Louis wants to ask your permission,” she said seriously, and Bert could see all that it meant to her in her eyes. He was pleased that she was doing it the right way this time, with the right man. It was his only concern.

“How old is he?”

“He’s forty-one, Father. But he’s not old,” she insisted.

“He’s eighteen years older than you. That’s a lot.”

“He’s very good to me. He’ll take care of me.” She was pleading with him. Bert had already seen that he was a kind, proper person, and approved, particularly since the Margaux had introduced them. They would never have introduced them if he were unsuitable.

“And where would you live? Here or in France?” He guessed the answer before she said it. She hesitated for a long moment, knowing he’d be sad.

“He has to work there, Papa,” she said in a soft voice. “At the bank. We’ll have to live in Paris. But you can come to visit us anytime. And he wants to adopt Lili.”

“That’s a long way for us to go,” Bert said practically, knowing Gwyneth would be upset. “And we can’t leave your grandmother and Magnus.”

“Yes, you can,” Bettina insisted. “Nothing can happen to them now,” she reminded him with a grin, which reminded her of her warning. “And please don’t let them do anything weird while he’s here, nor Uncle Angus.” She knew Josiah would behave.

“I can’t control your grandmother, but I’ll say something to the others. When are you thinking of getting married?” he asked her.

“That’s up to him, and whatever he works out with you,” Bettina said demurely. “Where are the Gregorys?” She wanted them to meet Louis too.

“They’re in Maine till Labor Day.”

She looked disappointed. She knew they had to leave before that.

“Well, I’ll wait for him to speak to me,” Bert said, as they left the library and walked back to where the others were. Louis was engaged in a lively exchange with Augusta, which worried Bettina.

“What are you saying, Grandma?” Bettina asked her, as Augusta looked at her.

“I was telling your friend that he has excellent manners for a Frenchman.” Bettina rolled her eyes and suggested they show Louis to his room. It had been a long day. They’d been up since dawn on the train. And a few minutes later, Phillips took him to one of the large guest bedrooms. Gwyneth wanted him to have the best one.

“We dine at seven-thirty. It’s early, I know,” Bert said pleasantly, and Louis asked him politely if he might have an audience with him before dinner, and Bert said he could. He wasn’t wasting any time. Gwyneth overheard them, and raised an eyebrow at her daughter.

“Is it what I think?” she asked Bettina in a whisper as she followed her upstairs to her bedroom. It had stood empty for five months while she was gone.

“Yes, Mother, it is,” Bettina said, turning to her, as tears filled Gwyneth’s eyes. She tried to restrain them but couldn’t.

“I should never have let you go to Paris,” she said sadly. “Now you and Lili will live there.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as they hugged each other.

“I’ll come to visit you, and you can visit us too, I promise. He’s such a fine man.”

Gwyneth nodded, pained that she was leaving the nest again. But Bettina looked so happy. She had never hoped to meet anyone like him. “Is it really what you want?”

Bettina nodded in answer. Gwyneth didn’t want to stand in her way, and knew she had been miserable in San Francisco for several years. With Tony, and the baby, and a life that was too quiet for a young girl, with more responsibility than she had wanted, on her own. Her life in Paris would be better for her.

They chatted for a while as Gwyneth helped her unpack, and tried to adjust to the idea of losing her daughter. She had thought she was coming home to stay, but she had only come to say goodbye.

Louis and Bert came to a satisfactory understanding when they met before dinner. Bert granted his permission for them to marry. He was impressed by what a serious man Louis was, and satisfied that he truly loved Bettina. Bert was sure she would be in good hands, and he had liked all of Louis’s answers to his questions. And he was obviously a person of substantial means.

Louis was waiting for Bettina at the bottom of the stairs when she came down dressed for dinner in a pale blue satin dress and the tiara she had worn when she came out. This was a special occasion, and she hadn’t worn it since.

“What did he say?” Bettina whispered with stars in her eyes.

“He said yes.” Louis beamed at her. “Now what do you say, my darling?”

“I say yes too,” she whispered back, and he kissed her, and slipped a small old black leather box out of his pocket. It had been his grandmother’s, and his parents had given it to him when he went to Dordogne. They were anxious to meet Bettina, and they had given him his grandmother’s ring to take to California when he got engaged. He gently put it on her finger, and put the little black box back in the pocket of his tails. The stone was quite large and Bettina was amazed. It fit perfectly, and they walked into the dining room together with it sparkling on her finger. It looked huge on her slender hand. She had never expected her life to turn out so well.

It took exactly two minutes for her grandmother to pick up her lorgnette and stare at her granddaughter’s left hand.

“What is that?” she asked, and looked from Bettina to Louis.

“We have something to tell you,” Bettina said softly, and her father interrupted her immediately.

He stood at the head of the table and smiled at all of them. “I would like to welcome our guest, Monsieur Louis de Lambertin,” Bert said in perfectly accented French, although it had been a long while since he’d spoken it. “And I have an announcement. Monsieur de Lambertin and Bettina are engaged,” he said proudly with a warm glance at his future son-in-law, who was only eight years younger than he was.

“As of when?” Augusta demanded to know, furious not to have been told before.

“As of twenty minutes ago, Mother Campbell,” her son-in-law informed her with a bow. “We wish them well. They will live in Paris, unfortunately for us, and Monsieur de Lambertin will adopt Lili and be her new father. This is a very happy day.” He beamed at his daughter, as tears rolled down Gwyneth’s cheeks. It was all so bittersweet.

“I can’t believe you and Lili are going to be French,” Augusta sniffed at Bettina. “I find that quite shocking.” But she had to admit, he seemed like a very well brought up person, and a nice man. “And when is the wedding?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t set a date yet,” Bettina said shyly.

“You’ll have to do it here. I’m too old to go traveling on trains and boats to France,” not to mention the fact that she had returned to the house from the spirit world six months before and Bettina had no idea if she could travel, nor Josiah or Magnus, or her great-uncle. It was a complication she hadn’t thought of, but she did now. She, Louis, and Lili were leaving in three weeks, and they couldn’t easily return to get married. She looked at Louis and whispered something to him during dinner, and he nodded. She spoke to her parents after dinner. They were delighted at the idea, and gave their permission instantly. It was the perfect solution for a number of reasons she didn’t want to mention to Louis. Bettina wanted to get married at the house, before they went back to France. They could have a reception for their friends in Paris. The Margaux had already offered to give them one. And she just wanted her family at the actual wedding. She wanted the Gregorys there too, but they were in Maine and not returning in time. Louis was very pleased at the idea. That way, they would already be married when they went back to France, and could live together immediately, and travel as man and wife on the ship.

“I’ll arrange everything,” Gwyneth promised. And she was going to see if the Gregorys could be home in time.

The next day, she and Bettina got busy with all the arrangements. They needed a minister, a caterer, and flowers. Bettina needed a dress, but there was no time to have one made. They had decided to have the wedding the following weekend, which was barely more than a week away, two weeks before they went back to France. The next afternoon, Bettina and her mother went up to the attic and began opening boxes, where the family wedding dresses were stored. Gwyneth had broader shoulders and was taller, and her wedding gown looked too old-fashioned and would have taken time to alter. Augusta had always been a much bigger woman. Bettina would have drowned in her wedding gown. But Augusta’s mother had been very much the same size and build as Bettina, and they carefully took out her white satin dress that was entirely encrusted with tiny pearls. It had a beautiful headdress, which looked like a pearl tiara, and Bettina very gently tried it on, mindful of how delicate and old it was. And when she put the dress on, it looked as though it had been made for her.

Louis was visiting Bert at the bank, so Bettina tiptoed down the stairs to her grandmother’s room to show her, and Augusta just stood there and smiled with tears in her eyes.

“May I wear it, Grandma?” she asked, and Augusta nodded.

“Of course…although it’s a shame to waste it on a Frenchman,” she said, but she was smiling, and Bettina knew she liked him and was happy for her.

They put the dress away again carefully, and Bettina had white satin shoes that were perfect for it. It needed no adjustment or alteration, and she was going to wear her hair swept up, with the little pearl tiara and the long veil, with pearls on it too. And the dress had a very long train.

“You’re going to look exquisite in it,” Gwyneth said when they got back to Bettina’s room. A few minutes later, Gwyneth went to Sybil’s office and sent her an email. It was the only way she could think of to contact her with the obstacle of their being a century apart. She told her about the wedding and the date and that Bettina and the entire family hoped they could be there. She went to the office an hour later to see if Sybil had responded, and she had. She explained that there was no way they could come out in time. They had to get Andy off to Edinburgh and Caroline to Los Angeles, Blake had business in New York after that, and then they’d return to the house in Maine and a sailboat they’d chartered, although she hated to miss the wedding. Gwyneth emailed back that she understood.

Gwyneth told Bettina later that the Gregorys had sent a message that they couldn’t get back to San Francisco in time for the wedding. They had too many plans they couldn’t change. They hated to miss it, but it was going to be strictly a family affair. But all Bettina wanted was Louis there, and all he needed was his bride.

When the day came, it was brilliantly sunny, without a wisp of the usual summer fog. The weather was warm, and they were going to be married in the garden, under an arch of white roses. And Gwyneth had filled the house with white orchids from their hothouse. She was wearing a royal blue gown, and Augusta was wearing purple. And Lucy had a pink silk dress she’d never worn. The men looked serious and elegant in morning coats, striped trousers, and top hats. Magnus was the ring bearer, Josiah the best man at Louis’s request, and Lucy her sister’s maid of honor. The ceremony was brief and very moving, and Louis gasped when he saw Bettina come down the grand staircase in her great-grandmother’s gown, with the train stretched out behind her the length of the staircase. Lucy kept it in good order for her, and felt well enough to do it.

Every minute detail of the wedding was perfect. And the lunch in the dining room was delicious. Angus insisted on playing the bagpipes and they couldn’t stop him, but he got winded very quickly. Even Rupert and Violet attended the wedding. Louis said he had never seen such a magnificent bride, and Bert had a photographer take formal portraits. There was a problem with his lens, which he was upset about. The photographer said his camera malfunctioned every time he tried to take photographs of the bride’s grandmother, her two brothers, and her great-uncle, and he just couldn’t record them. It had never happened to him before. But he got beautiful shots of the bride and groom, her parents, and her younger sister, and everyone was satisfied with that. Bettina knew why it happened. They all did, but said nothing.

Bettina told Louis it had been the most perfect day of her life.

“Really, Madame de Lambertin?” he asked with a satisfied smile. “As a matter of fact, mine too.” He had promised her a honeymoon in Venice when they got back to Europe, or Rome if she preferred it, or both. But that night, they slept in Bettina’s room, in her parents’ house, where she and her sister and brothers had been born. She wouldn’t have wanted to get married anywhere else. She was going to miss it terribly. She had always felt that the house had a soul of its own.

“You love this house, don’t you?” he asked her gently, and she nodded.

“I will always love it,” she said sadly.

“Perhaps one day we’ll spend time here when we’re very old.” But he had his château in Dordogne, and the house in Paris. And this was her home, and always would be. “If your brothers don’t want it, it might pass on to you,” he said, but she didn’t want to think about it. Neither Josiah nor Magnus could inherit it any longer, and Lucy wasn’t well. But Bettina couldn’t bear thinking about a time in the future when her family wouldn’t be there.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” he whispered to her, as he put his arms around her. “I love you much more now that we’re married.” And that night she discovered mysteries with him that she had never known. She felt as though she had waited her whole life for him, and belonged to no one else. She was his now, and their story was just beginning.