Chapter 19

After a very entertaining dinner with Samuel and Laure in Chinatown the night before, the Gregorys and all the young people planned to go all out on New Year’s Eve.

Samuel had rented a set of tails with Blake’s help. Caroline lent Laure another dress. Sybil had bought a new evening gown the week before, and everyone met in the dining room for a fabulous dinner with oysters, caviar, lobster, pheasant, baked Alaska for dessert, and a great deal of very fine champagne, which they continued drinking in the ballroom as they had on New Year’s Eve for three years. Samuel was still trying to decipher what he was seeing, and asking Sybil for explanations constantly. She was still encouraging him to write a book, based on Bettina’s but going further and in greater depth about all of the family members, their histories and the people they had touched in some way and those who had touched them, and what they had done in their lives. And the key that linked them was the house.

They all kissed and hugged at midnight, and danced for long hours afterward. Samuel asked Augusta to dance the first waltz with him, and won her heart forever. She told everyone proudly that he was her great-great-grandson from France, which she managed to make sound like a compliment, which was a first for her. And she wouldn’t allow Uncle Angus to dance with Laure, so he danced with Sybil instead, and in a little while Blake cut in, to save her from Angus’s lustful remarks.

The evening seemed exceptionally festive, and everyone was in a good mood. There was no war on, everyone was healthy, Blake was out of danger with his business and had moved on, and Sybil had finally finished her book, which was cause for celebration in itself.

Samuel thoroughly enjoyed the evening with them, and was already sad that they were going back to France in a few days, but he said he had to return to the Sorbonne to teach his final classes, give one more exam, and say goodbye to the office and colleagues he had enjoyed for so long.

“Why don’t you come back when you finish?” Sybil suggested. His visit had been a great success, and his Butterfield relatives loved him and Laure.

He sat and talked to Augusta after he danced with her and found her stories fascinating. Her mind was totally clear, despite her great age, although her brother’s wasn’t. And then, feeling the inexorable pull that Sybil had hoped for, he smiled at her as Phillips poured more champagne.

“I’ll do it. I’ll come back in February to start.”

“To start what?” Sybil asked him cautiously.

“The book you want me to write,” he said with a broad smile. “That’s why you asked me here, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t, but that’s a wonderful bonus. I tried to find you because you deserved to know your family, and for them to know the next generation, and Lili’s son, and now Laure. You’re part of all this, and you always will be, just as they are.”

“You’re part of it too, or they wouldn’t have let you in,” he said knowingly.

“We’re adopted, you’re blood,” she said, and he smiled as he watched everyone dancing in the ballroom. Sybil went to tell Gwyneth that Samuel was going to write the book about the family and the house, and he joined them a minute later.

“May I help you with it?” Gwyneth asked shyly. She was thrilled he was going to do it, and she knew Bert would be too. And it was Sybil who had convinced him.

“Of course,” Samuel said generously, and he turned to Sybil. “Will you help with the research?”

“I’d be happy to,” she answered. She had finished her own book at last. And the Butterfield book would be much more fun to write than her huge official tome about design, although she thought her publisher would be pleased with it. But Samuel would put his heart and soul into the book about the family, and Sybil and Gwyneth would help. It would be a joint effort. They were a community and a family, and provided each other strength, love, and consolation, which was why they had come together, Sybil was convinced.

Sybil thought about it as Samuel led Gwyneth onto the floor, to dance with his very beautiful great-grandmother.

She fully understood now, and had accepted, that she could not protect them from the future and their own history, although the Butterfields had reached far into the future and changed theirs. They couldn’t alter life events, or avoid challenges and heartbreaks. Whatever the century, their children had to grow up, wars could not be stopped, and their loved ones would die one day, whether they knew when or not. What mattered was the love the two families shared with each other, which had been the greatest gift to all of them, in a hundred years, whether the phenomenon could be explained or not. It didn’t matter, as long as they were together at Butterfield Mansion. The future would always be uncertain, and the past was what it was meant to be, which was perfect in a way.

Blake came to find Sybil a few minutes later, and they stood together as Bert raised a glass and wished them all an excellent New Year, full of health, prosperity, and joy.

“To 1920!” the elders of the family toasted in response.

“I hope it will be a wonderful year for us all,” Sybil echoed with feeling.

“As I recall, it was.” Augusta smiled at their family and friends, and sipped her champagne.

They danced in the ballroom as two new years began, a hundred years apart.