Janie had grown up surrounded by valuable and handsome things. Faith collected Amish quilts and Shaker furniture and was said to have built one of the best private collections of John French Sloan paintings in America. But the bulk of the Penrod capital was still where nobody could see it: invested securely in blue-chip America by a team of experts who handled nothing but Janie’s extended family’s estate.
Janie had met with some of the directors of the Penrods’ investment firm on a few occasions in New York, each time at their suggestion. Their offices, in the expensive shadow of Battery Park City, were ultramodern and, it seemed to Janie after the heavy metal decibel level at D&D, remarkably hushed. Antique Kashan carpets hung like portraits along the richly enameled, softly lit corridors.
“We feel, Janie,” they had informed her cautiously the first time they met, “that you are not caring for your trust fund in a way that you perhaps ought to.”
“Not caring?” Janie had replied. “But I’m not even using the money at the moment. How can I be hurting it? It’s just sitting there, untouched.”
“Well, exactly,” she was told. “Money such as yours needs to be handled, nurtured. It can’t just, uh, sit there, gathering dust. It has to be put into play … or it will never grow.”
“I see,” Janie had replied, thinking of the rather alarming tally in her savings account. “So you would like the money back … to play with?”
“Well, yes,” they had replied, “that is what we happen to be suggesting, if you are amenable.”
On subsequent visits, they had proudly explained to her just how cleverly they’d coached the money she’d given them. They traced the outline of their various game plans on graphs and explained the play-by-play through expensive-looking little booklets that they seemed to have printed just for her. She had nodded agreeably throughout their presentation and thanked them profusely at the end of the meeting. But the fact was—and she was afraid they couldn’t help but notice and silently disapprove—Janie didn’t really care.
To the rather puritanical attitude toward wealth Janie had inherited from Faith and Henry, she had added her own hard-earned knowledge about what money couldn’t buy: self-esteem, friendship, beauty. So, in general, she was unmoved by expensive things. She found a single rustling beech tree a thousand times more lovely than an intricately wrought Lalique masterpiece, the smell of the seaside in the heat of summer far, far more fragrant than Patou’s most expensive perfume.
So it was the flowing green countryside of France, far more than the expensively kept-up historic chateaux, that enthralled Janie during the drive down to Bordeaux. In the sunny, mist-shrouded May afternoon, the verdant hills of the Loire valley seemed to possess an almost magical quality. The lush fields spotted with dairy cows, the winding shallow brooks lined with weeping willows, the long, sure stand of poplars against the blue horizon—all seemed to Janie beautiful beyond words. How could I ever paint this? Janie asked herself silently as they passed through the centuries-old town square of Potiers. How could I ever capture the deep sadness of an empty café table in the noonday sun? The ennui of laundry strung to dry across an open courtyard?
Alain had dismissed the chauffeur in Paris, explaining to Janie that though he despised city traffic, he had discovered a certain visceral thrill driving his white Porsche cross-country from Paris to Bordeaux. Janie had at first found his tendency to speed alarming, and had sat with her foot pressed down on an invisible brake for the first twenty miles of the trip. Alain, noticing her tense silence, had glanced sideways at her and had seen her set expression and the pantomime braking. He had laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Janie had demanded, looking quickly around and out the window to see what she had missed.
“You, Jane,” he had told her, “terrified of my horrible European speeding habits. Please don’t worry. I used to test-drive new models for Citroen in my younger and more rebellious years. I know what I am doing, believe me. But if it will make you more comfortable, darling, I’ll slow down.”
The “darling,” far more than his reduced speed, warmed and relaxed her. As usual, there were long but not unpleasant silences between them.
Finally, Janie said, “Tell me about those young, rebellious years. I read someplace that you spent a few of them in Kenya as—what was it now?—a great white hunter?”
“You’ve been reading up on my notorious past, have you?” Alain laughed. “It’s not really all that interesting, I promise you. Rather typical Eurotrash stuff. I refused to buckle down at Chanson after the Sorbonne. I just felt I’d been tied to one institution or another all my young life—so I went through nearly eight awful years pursuing the idea of adventure: in Tangiers and Kenya, Argentina and Mexico. I dabbled in just about everything: hunting, hang gliding, race sailing, polo. I still have a lovely string of ponies that I now get to see maybe twice a year at most.”
“Why was it awful?” Janie asked. “It all sounds wonderfully romantic to me.”
“Oh, I was making everyone so unhappy, you see. My maman, especially. She takes great pride in the Chanson family, the company, our so-called place in society. She wanted me to set a sterling example. Instead I turned into this roving international sort of playboy. We didn’t speak at one point for two full years.”
“And you? Were you making yourself unhappy, too? It sounds to me like you were just having fun. Is that so wrong?”
“Ah, you Americans!” Alain said with a laugh. “Your pursuit of happiness and so on. Perhaps, yes, I was having a good time, but, well, it just wasn’t enough. I felt more and more guilty and uncomfortable with myself. I felt this responsibility weighing down on me, pressing in on me. And finally I decided that if the feeling of the responsibility was there constantly—I might as well carry it in actuality, right? Since I wasn’t exactly escaping my fate, you see, I decided I would come to grips with it.”
“I see,” Janie answered. “So now that you are fulfilling all your obligations, you are happy?”
“I would never use that word,” Alain replied somewhat abruptly. “It is, as I said, an American concept, one I don’t really approve of. What is happiness for, after all, if not just personal aggrandizement? And if we were all to pursue it willy-nilly, what would happen to this world? What’s important in my mind is accepting your fate, understanding your responsibilities to your family and the society, and fulfilling them as best you can.”
There was no question that Alain’s sentiments were strong and heartfelt. And yet Janie felt something within herself denying what he was saying. Accept your fate? If she had, she would never have been able to change, she would never be sitting next to Alain at this moment. She would be fat, shy, friendless Jane Millicent Penrod, painting lonely seascapes in the attic studio at Baldwin. Fulfill your responsibilities—but whose were they, after all? Weren’t they really his parents’? Perhaps specifically his mother’s? Wasn’t your true responsibility, Janie asked herself silently, to find out what you wanted from life, and then go do it?
And though Janie turned these questions over in her mind, she merely asked Alain, “I’m just curious … if you didn’t have these obligations, what would you choose to do?”
“Polo,” Alain answered at once. “It’s a thrilling, demanding sport. And it contains all my favorite things—riding and gamesmanship, courage, and speed. But, alas, it’s also a young man’s game. It’s a good thing really I have no choice in the matter. That way I can have no regrets.”
“Let me know,” Janie told Alain a few hours later, “when we’re getting close.” They had passed through Angoulême just as the sun was setting, and now the twilight—fragrant with newly mown fields and damp earth—was fading into a thickly misted darkness. As they sped past open fields, Janie could hear the whine of insects, the light moan of wind in the trees.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alain replied, “we’ve been on our property since that last turn. The arched stone gate we passed through? That’s the entrance to the chateau.”
Even in the gathering darkness, Janie had been impressed with the carved stone lions that had flanked the gate, their muzzles blurred by age. She should have recognized them immediately. The stone lion was the Chanson family symbol. In one form or another it appeared on every label that Chateau Chanson distributed. Now Janie thought she glimpsed the white pillars of the chateau itself through the long lane of plane trees.
And then they were there. Two uniformed servants hurried across the gravel-covered cour d’honneur to welcome Alain, open the passenger side of the Porsche for Janie, and gather up the luggage from the trunk.
Janie couldn’t quite follow the rapid-fire French that Alain exchanged with the young, slightly plump uniformed man who seemed to be in charge, though she formed the general impression that Alain was demanding and more than a little domineering with his staff.
“Oui, Monsieur Chanson. Absolutement, Monsieur Chanson.” The plump man nodded and nearly bowed as they came into the grand front hallway. It had terra-cotta tiles, white-plastered walls, and a vaulted ceiling two stories high. A wide staircase, deeply polished steps agleam, curved gracefully upward to the étage noble. A faded Flemish tapestry—depicting a rowdy scene of rustic wine-making—hung above the landing. To her left Janie caught a glimpse of a large room crowded with bookshelves and warmly colored Turkish carpets. The smell of fresh lavender and wood smoke filled the downstairs. Janie, who had prepared herself for something altogether more formal and forbidding, sighed with pleasure. Alain turned to her at once.
“I’m sorry, you must be exhausted,” he said politely. “It’s totally up to you, but I’ve asked that we be served a light dinner. If you’d rather go straight up to bed, though, just tell me.”
But Janie had of course replied that dinner sounded delightful, and it was, though the food itself had little to do with her pleasure. They ate together on the closed-in back porch that ran nearly the length of the house. The walls were the color of goldenrod, the windows and doors painted Dutch blue. Lanterns, lit with kerosene, flickered from the latticework on the wall, casting shadows that danced across the platters of grilled oysters, Provençal chicken, and fresh garden salad that the cook had arranged on the brightly flowered tablecloth.
“You are certain you’re not too cold?” Alain asked her as they sat down at the table. “We could close the doors if you like.”
“No, this is wonderful,” Janie told him, breathing in the mingled aromas of peat moss and damp flowers from the unseen garden beyond. The long row of double French doors was angled open to the night. The flickering lanterns were mirrored back at the room in the hundreds of panes of glass.
“Are you always so accommodating, Jane?” Alain asked, pouring her a glass of Chanson’s premiere label, Clos de Prime. He swished wine around in the glass, held it up to the light, and then placed it proudly beside her plate. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a bad mood. Are you never—what is the American phrase—bitchy?”
She gazed quietly across at him, her look of longing masked by the half-light. His features were softened by the flickering lanterns, his voice gentler, less strident than it had been in Paris. She had been afraid that in his own home, surrounded by the familiar objects of his life, he would look at her—and suddenly see her for what she was. For no matter how many times she stared at herself in the mirror these days—as she had done alone in her room before dinner for several long minutes—she could not wholly believe that the pale-skinned, red-haired beauty who stared back at her really was her. In her heart she was still the chubby wallflower nobody wanted to take to the dance. Of course, he could remember what she had so recently looked like. Suddenly, despite the fact that she knew it might shatter forever the sweet tension that was mounting between them, she knew she had to make him understand the dizzying side effects of her transformation.
“When you grow up as an ugly duckling,” Janie replied softly, “you learn that you simply have to be nice and cheerful—or you’ll have no hope of ever finding friends.”
“You speak such nonsense in such a serious tone.” Alain laughed, pouring himself another glass of wine. “All little girls think they’re hideous, didn’t you know? I have no idea why. I’m sure you were a vision, my dear, just look at you! How many hearts have you broken? No,” Alain said, cutting her off when she tried to protest, “don’t tell me. I can’t bear to know.”
“Alain,” Janie continued with determination, “you know perfectly well that I haven’t always looked like this. It was just a few months ago, in fact, that I…”
“Please,” Alain said. “You know, you have only one fault, Jane, though I’m not sure how bad a trait it really is. You are far, far too modest. What’s the point of selling yourself so short? It’s ridiculous, really, listening to how you go on. Please let’s put your little uncertainties away, all right? Let’s forget the past—forever. As far as I am concerned, you are perfect, and you were born perfect. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes,” Janie replied, smiling.
“Good.” He looked at her over his wineglass. “That’s my girl.”
But would I be, Janie couldn’t help but wonder, if you knew the real me? Would you smile and talk and hold my hand with such tenderness if you could see—as I still do—the Janie Penrod who never once received a valentine? Janie couldn’t help but feel a guilty twinge that Alain didn’t know who she really was. And that he would never look at her the way he was now—with a mixture of amusement and longing—if he did.