Chapter 2
The address was unlisted, but I found the phone number in the directory; it was still listed under the name of Baron Boris Arvon.
On the second ring, a man answered.
"May I speak with"-I hesitated, not knowing exactly what tide the girl laid claim to. Finally, I said: "May I speak with Mademoiselle Arvon?"
"Who is calling, please?"
It was only then I realized how futile my effort was. What would my name mean to a girl so freshly bereaved of her mother. The name would mean nothing; she would refuse to speak to me.
"Howard Cunningham," I said. I had never spoken my name so hopelessly.
"Will you hold on a moment please, sir? I'll see if Mademoiselle is at home."
Doubtless she wouldn't be, I thought. But then, to my surprise, I heard a woman':, voice speaking to me.
"Mr. Cunningham?"
"Yes."
"This is Angela Arvon. Are you the American Mr. Cunningham, an old friend of my mother?" Her voice was much softer than her mother's had been; Carla's voice was husky, sensual.
"Yes," I replied. "I'm surprised you knew about me."
"I don't know about you-or very little, in any case. Do you think you could come over here, even for a very few moments?"
"Indeed I could."
"Can you come now, this morning?"
"Yes," I said, and she gave me the address.
The Arvon mansion lay in the Bois de Boulogne. It was an enormous house, rather ugly on the outside except for the formal gardens already in bloom and the depth of chestnut trees that bounded three sides of the estate.
I drove up to the house, through the high gates, and up the driveway; I parked several yards from the terrace where the Arvon chauffeur took over and rode my car round to the back of the house. As I climbed the steps to the door, I found myself trembling with the sensation of Carla everywhere; I could feel her in everything around me.
Even in the girl who opened the door. She was the age at which I had known her mother, but she was paler than Carla, and her grief was darker. Her hair was cut like her mother's but was a different color: rich, soft auburn. And her eyes were green. She was in deep mourning, and her smile too was a little mournful as she asked me to come into the house. Walking Ahead of me, Angela showed me to the salon, and it was only when she was at a slight distance from me that I saw how much shorter she was than Carla.
"Please sit down, Mr. Cunningham. What do you drink at this time of day?"
"Anything at all"
She poured two sherries, and then sat down beside me on the sofa. I was trying very hard not to look at her.
"Your mother spoke of me?" I asked.
"Not until the day before her death. And she didn't say very much about you."
"Would you tell me what-"
"She said: 'Angela, I think an American named Howard Cunningham will phone here during the next few days. I want you to ask him here, and I want you to give him this envelope.' I asked her why she couldn't give it to you herself, and she smiled: 'I may not be able to see him. Please don't question me, darling; just do as I say. And be nice to him-because I loved him very deeply.' That was all she told me. Wait, I'll get the envelope for you."
She stood up, crossed the room, and returned, handing me the letter.
"If you'd like to read it now, please go ahead. I'll leave you alone for a few minutes."
I tore the envelope open and found two sheets of paper inside; each bore the Arvon crest. The first sheet was dated the day before her death, and it read:
My dearest Howard I have waited almost twenty years to write this letter to you, and now at last I have come to do it, I have so little time that I must hurry.
I love you. I have never stopped loving you. And I want you to know everything that has happened to me because you failed me when I needed you so terribly. I told you I would go crazy. I have-but a calculated madness which took hold of me between midnight and dawn: our hours. I enclose a list of people whom I want you to see. It is an incomplete list of my madness, but it is composed of people who should remember your name. Most of them have seen you, just as I have seen you-as I drove slowly by our cafe on the anniversaries of our meeting. I saw you, in fact, last summer: you've aged, of course-but I think you are handsomer, riper-looking. How much I yearn for one more night with you in a meadow.
Go to see the people listed; but go to see them only in the order in which they are listed. I think most of them will tell you what I want you to know.
My death has brought you to reading this. With this note I am leaving a note for Angela which she will find the day after my death. She will pay a great deal of money and the newspapers will write nothing more of my death. It would not even be written about the first time-but it must-so that you will know, so that you will come to my house, Boris' house.
When you've seen all the people I've listed, I want you to come back once more to this house.
I've never stopped loving you.
Carla.
The second sheet of paper had six names and addresses on it. I stared at the names blindly, remembering Carla, sipping sherry.
Angela came back to the room and sat down beside me.
"I'm so glad you're here, Mr. Cunningham. We were the only people she loved."
"Yes," I sighed. "I hope you didn't fail her as badly as I did."
"I've always been aware how much she gave up for me. And I've tried to make her sacrifices mean something. But you-would you tell me when you knew my mother?"
"Not long after your father died. We broke up because I wanted to marry her, and she wouldn't because...." My voice trailed away.
"Because of me."
We were silent then and I watched her breathing heavily beside me.
"I'd better go," I said. "There are some people your mother wanted me to see for her."
"Will you come again? Please do."
"Thank you. I'd like to very much. When I've seen these people."
"We stood up and she gave me her hand. I could not resist drawing her toward me and kissing her on the forehead; it was a paternal contact, much like my first with her mother. But as my lips touched her cool forehead she seemed to press herself against me. I didn't want to relinquish our closeness, but at last I broke away. Angela's cheeks now had a fuller color than they'd had a moment before, and her green eyes glistened. I stroked her face gently.
"You're so much like your mother."
She put her hand over mine and drew close to me again.
"I must go."
"Yes...." But neither of us moved.
I felt the freshness of her youth against me, and for all my efforts at control, I knew my excitement was bulging against my trousers. Her belly pressed against the bulge and she shuddered as if having been in contact with a flame.
Looking down, I could see into the neck of her dress. Her breathing was heavy and I saw the pale mounds rise and fall. They curved gently from the center of her chest, and seemed to sway to the sides. She made a deliberate gesture and two soft pink tips flickered for a moment, then were hidden. I knew that if I didn't move, there might be regrettable incidents.
"I'd better go," I said and stepped away from her.
"I'll have your car brought around front" Her eyes" looked down to the bulge at my fly, then she brushed past me and went out of the room.
"It'll be there in a moment," she said, coming back, and I followed her cut of the salon, through the central hall, to the door of the house. On the threshold she stood with her back to me. As if by accident, she moved until she was directly before me. Through my trousers and through her mourning clothes, I felt the roundness of her buttocks; she moved sideways, subdy, cat-like.
But then the car was there.
"There you are," said Angela, turning to face me. We shook hands. "I look forward to seeing you."
She watched me get into the car and drive to the gates of the estate. How much like her mother she was, I thought