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Authors: Nancy Atherton
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reclaimed by the encroaching forest. Leaf-filtered sunlight flooded the room and made shifting shadow patterns on the thin gray carpet.
Nell sat hunched over in an armchair, fingers drumming, foot tapping, looking every bit the sulky teenager, while Mrs. Burweed made her way around the room, dusting the furniture and humming to herself.
“Thank you, Mrs. Burweed,” Gerald said. “We’ll take our tea in here, when you’re quite ready. I’ll scout out that bit of sticking plaster, Miss Shepherd. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
I waited until Gerald and the housekeeper had left, then darted over to Nell and whispered urgently, “Grand papa?”
“I had to do something,” Nell hissed. “You were standing there like a deer in headlamps.”
“Right,” I said, stung by the rebuke, but in no position to argue. “Sorry about that.”
“Let me do the talking,” Nell told me hurriedly. “All you have to do is play dumb.”
“Typecasting,” I muttered. As I sank onto the couch, I wondered what had happened to the shy and reticent little girl who’d traveled with me from the cottage.
Gerald returned with a first-aid kit, and after I’d cleansed and bandaged my little finger to his satisfaction, he set the kit on an end table and took a seat in the remaining armchair.
“I’m sorry to say that tea will be delayed,” he announced. “Mrs. Burweed insists on preparing a fresh batch of meringues to replace those left too long in the oven.” He removed his spectacles and returned them to his shirt pocket. “While we wait, perhaps you would continue with your story, Mademoiselle Gascon. I’m sure Miss Shepherd will be fascinated.” He leaned back comfortably in his chair and favored Nell with an amused, tolerant smile that vanished instantly when she exploded into tears.
“F-forgive me,” she said tremulously. “But Maman is so ill, and I was so hoping to find Grandpapa, to t-tell him that she n-needs him....” She gave a little moan, bowed her head, and wept as though her heart would break.
Gerald sat bolt upright, completely disconcerted. He looked distractedly at me, then pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and offered it to Nell, who waved it away and lapsed into a torrent of French in which the words for “death” and “despair” figured prominently. She was magnificent. Gerald patted her back and murmured soothing phrases, and by the time he’d persuaded her to accept his handkerchief, he looked as though he’d willingly believe anything Nell chose to tell him.
Which was just as well, because the tale Nell trotted out would have made a fine libretto for a tragic opera.
9.
For the next forty minutes I listened, awed and humbled by Nell’s daring and the depth of her conviction. Cousin Gerald seemed transfixed, and by the time Nell had brought her story to its stirring conclusion she had me half convinced that it was true.
Nicolette Gascon was nothing less than Willis, Sr.’s illegitimate granddaughter. Nicolette’s mother was Regina, Willis, Sr.’s only daughter, who’d run off to Paris to live in sin with Howard Gascon, a British exchange student and artist manqué she’d met while studying art history at Harvard.
Howard Gascon had abandoned Regina and Nicolette three years earlier—“because an artist must be libre,” Nell proclaimed, with the passionate conviction of an adoring daughter—but mother and child had managed well enough until six months ago, when Regina had been taken ill with something that sounded suspiciously like consumption.
Because of her illness, Regina had lost her job at the café near Montmartre and was sliding into abject poverty, but she couldn’t turn to her father for help-Willis, Sr., had disowned his daughter because of her scandalous behavior and to this day had neither seen nor acknowledged his only grandchild.
Nicolette had heard of her grandfather’s presence in England—“from one of the gentils men who visit Maman now and
Nell sat hunched over in an armchair, fingers drumming, foot tapping, looking every bit the sulky teenager, while Mrs. Burweed made her way around the room, dusting the furniture and humming to herself.
“Thank you, Mrs. Burweed,” Gerald said. “We’ll take our tea in here, when you’re quite ready. I’ll scout out that bit of sticking plaster, Miss Shepherd. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
I waited until Gerald and the housekeeper had left, then darted over to Nell and whispered urgently, “Grand papa?”
“I had to do something,” Nell hissed. “You were standing there like a deer in headlamps.”
“Right,” I said, stung by the rebuke, but in no position to argue. “Sorry about that.”
“Let me do the talking,” Nell told me hurriedly. “All you have to do is play dumb.”
“Typecasting,” I muttered. As I sank onto the couch, I wondered what had happened to the shy and reticent little girl who’d traveled with me from the cottage.
Gerald returned with a first-aid kit, and after I’d cleansed and bandaged my little finger to his satisfaction, he set the kit on an end table and took a seat in the remaining armchair.
“I’m sorry to say that tea will be delayed,” he announced. “Mrs. Burweed insists on preparing a fresh batch of meringues to replace those left too long in the oven.” He removed his spectacles and returned them to his shirt pocket. “While we wait, perhaps you would continue with your story, Mademoiselle Gascon. I’m sure Miss Shepherd will be fascinated.” He leaned back comfortably in his chair and favored Nell with an amused, tolerant smile that vanished instantly when she exploded into tears.
“F-forgive me,” she said tremulously. “But Maman is so ill, and I was so hoping to find Grandpapa, to t-tell him that she n-needs him....” She gave a little moan, bowed her head, and wept as though her heart would break.
Gerald sat bolt upright, completely disconcerted. He looked distractedly at me, then pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and offered it to Nell, who waved it away and lapsed into a torrent of French in which the words for “death” and “despair” figured prominently. She was magnificent. Gerald patted her back and murmured soothing phrases, and by the time he’d persuaded her to accept his handkerchief, he looked as though he’d willingly believe anything Nell chose to tell him.
Which was just as well, because the tale Nell trotted out would have made a fine libretto for a tragic opera.
9.
For the next forty minutes I listened, awed and humbled by Nell’s daring and the depth of her conviction. Cousin Gerald seemed transfixed, and by the time Nell had brought her story to its stirring conclusion she had me half convinced that it was true.
Nicolette Gascon was nothing less than Willis, Sr.’s illegitimate granddaughter. Nicolette’s mother was Regina, Willis, Sr.’s only daughter, who’d run off to Paris to live in sin with Howard Gascon, a British exchange student and artist manqué she’d met while studying art history at Harvard.
Howard Gascon had abandoned Regina and Nicolette three years earlier—“because an artist must be libre,” Nell proclaimed, with the passionate conviction of an adoring daughter—but mother and child had managed well enough until six months ago, when Regina had been taken ill with something that sounded suspiciously like consumption.
Because of her illness, Regina had lost her job at the café near Montmartre and was sliding into abject poverty, but she couldn’t turn to her father for help-Willis, Sr., had disowned his daughter because of her scandalous behavior and to this day had neither seen nor acknowledged his only grandchild.
Nicolette had heard of her grandfather’s presence in England—“from one of the gentils men who visit Maman now and
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