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Nodding, Laura continued to rest for a minute or two. Then reaching for Claire, she towed her back to the bank and dragged her up onto the grassy slope.
Both girls were dripping wet and shaking with cold. Although Laura was exhausted, she wasted no time, pulling on her jeans and sneakers swiftly. Supporting each other they made their way back to the house.
Once they reached the back door which led into the kitchen, Laura stopped, and stared at Claire intently. ‘Before we go in tell me what happened. How did you get in the river?’
Claire nodded and pushed back her wet hair. Her freckles stood out like dark blotches on her ashen face. ‘I was picking wild flowers and got too near the edge of the river, Laura. I suddenly slipped and rolled down the bank into the water. I was scared and I panicked, floundered. I just don’t know how I drifted into the middle of the river.’
‘Gran says that part of the river is dangerous because there’s some sort of current out there. But come on, you’re shaking.’
‘So are you,’ Claire said, her teeth chattering.
Fenice was the first person they saw as they stepped into the big family kitchen.
The housekeeper, tall, red-haired and colourful in her white Austrian blouse and floral dirndl skirt, swung around from the stove as they entered. She gasped out loud at the sight of them.
‘Good Lord! What happened to you two?’ she cried rushing towards them. ‘A couple of drowned rats, that’s how you both look!’ She saw they were cold and shaking, most especially Claire, and drew her closer to the big kitchen stove where she was cooking breakfast. Glancing at Laura, Fenice added, ‘Get some big towels out of the linen press in the back hall, please, Laura. I’m afraid Claire’s a bit worse off than you.’
‘Yes, I know she is,’ Laura said and ran and did as Fenice asked. She returned with an armful of large towels.
‘Come on, Claire, wrap yourself in this and let’s get you upstairs. You too, Laura. What you both need is a hot shower immediately.’
‘What happened? What’s going on?’ Megan Valiant asked from the doorway of the dining room which led directly into the kitchen.
‘Claire was picking flowers and she fell into the deep part of the river near the meadow,’ Laura explained quickly.
‘I would have drowned if Laura hadn’t fished me out,’ Claire interjected. ‘I’m sorry, Grandma Megan, for making trouble.’
Megan Morgan Valiant held herself very still, remembering…remembering another child, her grandson…Mervyn, who had drowned in the lake in Connecticut. She felt a chill run through her. But at once she pushed aside her memories, and stared at Claire. She was puzzled by the girl’s apology and by the way in which she seemed to cower next to Laura, as if seeking protection.
Hurrying across to the two girls huddled together near the big range, Megan looked them over quickly and said in a brisk tone, ‘Neither of you seem to be too much the worse for wear, but you’d better go upstairs and have a shower, as Fenice suggested. And Fenice, please put the kettle on, I think the girls need something hot to drink. Grandpa Owen’s miner’s tea, that’ll do the trick.’
‘No sooner said than done, Mrs V.’ Fenice went to get the kettle, filled it with water at the sink and put it on the stove.
‘Come on, Claire,’ Laura said, shepherding her friend out of the kitchen.
Megan followed the two young girls, still pondering Claire’s demeanour. No wonder she seems frightened, Megan thought, she’s had a terrible scare. Falling into the river must have terrified her, since she can’t swim. It struck Megan that Claire might well be suffering from shock, and she wondered whether to call the doctor. Perhaps Claire ought to be taken over there to see him. Laura also looked pale, and she was shivering, but otherwise there didn’t seem to be too much wrong with her granddaughter.
Climbing the stairs behind them, Megan remarked, ‘I see you lost a sneaker, Claire.’
‘It’s in the river, Gran,’ Laura said, glancing over her shoulder.
‘I see. Never mind, we’ll drive over to Kent later and buy you another pair, Claire.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Claire answered rapidly. ‘I have my sandals with me.’
‘Sneakers are useful in the country, comfortable, and they’ll be a gift from me,’ Megan told her as they reached the landing at the top of the stairs. ‘Now, girls, into the shower both of you.’
Claire hurried off to the blue-and-white bedroom where she always stayed, and Laura went into hers.
Megan followed her granddaughter, and once she had closed the door behind them she said, ‘Out of those wet clothes at once and into the shower, Laura. Later you can tell me exactly what happened.’
‘But I have told you, Gran.’
‘Claire could be suffering from shock,’ Megan said. ‘I think I ought to drive you both over to Dr Tomkins.’
‘We’re both okay, Gran,’ Laura protested.
‘I’m going to pop along to Claire’s room, I want to see how she’s feeling.’
‘Yes, Gran,’ Laura said and went into the bathroom.
Megan knocked on the door of Claire’s room and when there was no answer she went in. From the bathroom she could hear the sound of water running in the shower. Turning, she caught sight of herself in the mirror hanging on the wall above the antique French chest.
Pausing for a moment, Megan smoothed her hand over her dark chestnut hair and then straightened the collar of her pale blue shirt. Leaning closer, she stared at herself. How white her face was. But that was no surprise. Claire’s misadventure had upset her greatly, even though she had not let the girls see this. Laura had not yet given her the details of the accident, but obviously they had been in a precarious situation. And Laura had put herself at risk because she had run to Claire’s rescue. The wide part of the river was dangerous, and the outcome might have been very different. Megan shivered and goose bumps flew up her arms as she realized how terrible the consequences might have been. Little Mervyn…he hadn’t been so lucky when he had fallen into the lake…
She walked across the floor, stood gazing out of the window for a moment, waiting for Claire to emerge. At sixty-seven, Megan Morgan Valiant was a beautiful woman. Tall and slender, she held herself erect, and in her carriage and deportment she was very much the great Broadway musical star. Although the colour of her rich chestnut hair needed help from her hairdresser these days, it was, nevertheless, thick and luxuriant; her face was relatively free of wrinkles and had remained youthful. Her eyes were her most arresting feature. They were a deep vivid blue, large and set wide apart. Her granddaughter had inherited them, as well as her height and colouring. Lithe and full of energy, Megan was a woman who had remained young in spirit. Her career in the theatre was somewhat curtailed these days, through choice, but her popularity as a star had never waned.
‘Oh, it’s you, Grandma Megan,’ Claire said, sounding surprised as she stepped into the bedroom wrapped in a towel. ‘I’m feeling better after my shower. And warmer.’
Megan nodded. ‘But perhaps we should go and see the doctor in Kent –’
‘No, no, I don’t need a doctor,’ Claire interrupted. ‘I’m fine, honestly I am.’
‘What happened? Why did you venture into the river when you can’t swim, Claire dear?’
‘I didn’t. I fell in. I was picking flowers and slipped. I rolled down the bank. And I somehow got swept into the middle, into the deep part of the river.’
‘There’s some sort of strange current there,’ Megan explained. ‘And it is very dangerous. We’ve been aware of it for years. You’re very lucky Laura was with you.’
‘Oh but she wasn’t! I was alone. She must’ve heard me shouting for help. She dived in, but at first she couldn’t get me out of the water. My foot was caught in a roll of wire netting. She had to cut my sneaker off.’
‘My God, it’s worse than I thought! You were very lucky indeed!’
‘Yes, I was. I’d better go and dry my hair.’ Swinging around, Claire headed back into the bathroom. As she did the towel slipped down at one side, revealing part of her body.
‘Claire, whatever happened to your back?’ Megan exclaimed, staring at the yellow bruises under her shoulder blade.
‘I must have hurt myself when I fell into the river,’ Claire muttered, pulling the towel around herself swiftly.
‘Claire, those are old bruises,’ Megan answered, her voice gentle but concerned.
‘I fell off my bicycle in Central Park,’ Claire replied, and disappeared into the bathroom.
A few minutes later Megan found her husband in the dining room, where he was breakfasting on boiled eggs, thin buttered toast and his famous miner’s tea, which was very strong and sweet.
‘I heard all about it,’ Owen said as Megan hurried into the room. ‘Fenice told me, and from what she said they’re both all right, aren’t they, Megan?’
She nodded. ‘They are, but it could have been fatal for Claire,’ she replied, and then went on to explain what had happened to her.
‘Laura’s a plucky one, and strong for her age,’ Owen exclaimed. ‘And thank God she had the presence of mind to jump in and help Claire, rather than running back here for me or Tom. You say Claire’s foot got caught in a roll of wire netting. God knows how that came to be in the river. I’ll talk to Tom later, and he can lift it out.’ Owen gave Megan a pointed look and added, ‘But I’m afraid I’m going to insist Claire learns to swim. Laura and I will give her lessons in the swimming pool.’
‘That’s a good idea…’ Megan paused, leaned back in her chair and looked off into the distance.
Owen, watching her closely, said slowly, ‘I know, I know, my darling, this mishap has brought back bad memories for you…you’ve been thinking of poor little Mervyn.’
‘Yes, I have,’ Megan answered, her voice as quiet as his. Sitting up straighter, finding a smile, Megan went on, ‘I think I’ll have a cup of tea. I need it after all this.’ As she spoke she reached for the teapot and poured herself a cup.
Owen said, ‘I’m glad I helped Laura to become an athlete. It’s served her well, and will in the future.’
‘Laura’s always been brave, Owen, even when she was a small child. And quick thinking, as well.’
‘She idolizes Claire,’ Owen remarked, thinking out loud. ‘She’ll always rush to her rescue whatever the circumstances.’
‘I know.’ Megan sighed and looked across at Owen.
‘What is it?’ he asked, frowning. ‘You look troubled.’
‘Claire’s back is covered with old bruises.’
‘What?’ He sounded startled.
‘I saw them when she came out of the shower. She said she’d fallen off her bicycle in the park,’ Megan explained. ‘But you don’t believe her?’ ‘I don’t know whether I do or not.’
‘I’ve always thought the Bensons were a bit odd,’ Owen said, bringing his hand up to his generous mouth. He rubbed it thoughtfully, his dark eyes narrowing. ‘She could have fallen, you know.’
‘Yes…’ Megan was silent, but eventually she said, ‘I hope you and I live a long time, Owen, so that we can look after Laura and Claire, be there for them.’
Reaching out, he put his hand over hers and smiled at her lovingly. ‘So do I. But remember this…those two will always be there for each other.’
PART ONE (#ulink_57c3dcea-b260-54e7-ac79-fb5bc0bce08f)
Winter
1996
1 (#ulink_72562b45-124f-598f-8319-28b9616bf196)
Whenever she was in Paris on business and had an hour or two to spare, Laura Valiant inevitably headed for the Musée d’Orsay in the seventh arrondissement on the Left Bank.
Today was such a day. The moment her lunch with two prominent art-dealers from the Galerie Theoni was over, she thanked them, promised to be in touch about the Matisse, and said her goodbyes.
Leaving the Relais Plaza, she crossed the lobby of the Plaza Athénée Hotel and stepped out onto the avenue Montaigne.
There were no cabs on the rank in front of the hotel and none in sight, so she decided to walk. It was a cold December day with a hint of rain in the air. She shivered and shrugged further into her black overcoat.
Laura was dressed entirely in black, from the topcoat to her smart woollen suit underneath and soft leather boots that stopped just short of the knee. Her jet-black hair, styled in a short, sleek cut, accentuated both her pale face and her eyes of a blue so brilliant they seemed supernatural. A slender tall young woman, she looked much younger than her thirty-one years.
Laura was a striking figure as she hurried along; many a male head turned. But she did not notice those admiring glances, so intent was she in her purpose.
She lifted her head and looked up at the sky. It was leaden and grey this afternoon; a watery sun was trying to push through the clouds without much success. But the weather was irrelevant here. To Laura, Paris was a city full of nostalgia and memories, memories happy and sad…so much had happened to her here.
First love – oh, how she had loved him and willingly lost her virginity at eighteen – and first heartbreak, when he had said it was over and had left her with such sudden abruptness that she had been stunned. And oh, the terrible jealousy when she had gone to see him a few days later and found him in bed with another girl. But there was more self-love than love in jealousy, de la Rochefoucauld had written long ago; she had taken those wise words to heart on that awful day and made them her own personal motto over the years. And she had fallen in love again, more than once, even though she had believed she never would. Miraculously, or so it had seemed to her at the time, she had eventually recovered from her broken heart to discover that there were other attractive young men in the world, and many were available.
It was her mother who had first brought her to Paris when she was twelve, and she had been captivated. At the age of eighteen she had returned to study art history and literature at the Sorbonne. In the two years she had lived in Paris as a student she had come to know it as well as she knew New York, where she had been born and raised. Whether shrouded in spring rain, wrapped in the airless heat of summer or coated with winter snow, Paris was the most beautiful of cities.
City of Light, City of Lovers, City of Gaiety, City of Artists…it had so many names. But no matter what people chose to call it, Paris was a truly magical place. She had never lost her fascination with it, and whenever she came back she immediately fell under its spell once again.
Mostly, Laura thought of Paris as the City of Artists, for had they not all worked and lived here at one time or another, those great painters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Whatever their origins and from wherever they sprang, they had eventually come here, armed with their palettes and brushes and paints, and their soaring talent. Gauguin, Van Gogh, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Matisse, Cézanne, Vuillard, Degas, Sisley and Seurat. The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters she most admired, and in whose work she was an expert, had all converged on Paris to make it their home, if only for a short while.
The world of art was her world, and it had been for as long as she could remember. She had inherited her love of art from her mother Maggie Valiant, a well-known American painter who had studied at the Royal College of Art in London and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.
But Laura was the first to admit she lacked her mother’s talent and vision as a painter, and when she was in her early teens painting became an avocation rather than her vocation. Nonetheless, she had decided she wanted to work with art once she had finished her studies, and after her graduation from the Sorbonne she did stints with several galleries in Paris before returning home to the States. Once back in New York, she did gallery work again, and then completed a rewarding four years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One of her superiors at the museum, impressed by her unerring eye, superb taste, and knowledge of art, encouraged her to become an art-adviser. And so three years ago, at the age of twenty-eight, she and Alison Maynard, a colleague at the Metropolitan, had started their own company. The two of them had made a great success of this venture, which they had named Art Acquisitions. She and Alison bought art for a number of wealthy clients, and helped them to create collections of some significance. Laura loved her career; it was the most important thing in her life, except for her husband Doug, and the Valiants.
A few days ago she had flown to Paris from New York, hoping to find paintings for one of their important clients, a Canadian newspaper magnate. Unfortunately, she had not found anything of importance so far, and she and Alison had agreed on the phone that she would stay on a bit longer to continue her search. She had a number of appointments, and she was hopeful she would find something of interest and value in the coming week.
Increasing her pace, Laura soon found herself turning onto the rue de Bellechasse, where the Musée d’Orsay was located not far from the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides. She had made it from the hotel faster than she had expected, and as she went into the museum she experienced a little spurt of excitement. Inside were some of her favourite works of art.
The museum was deserted and this pleased Laura; she disliked crowds when she was looking at paintings. It was really dead this afternoon, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only sound was the click of her heels on the floor; her footsteps echoed loudly as she walked towards the hall where the Renoirs hung.
She stood for a long time in front of Nude in Sunlight. Renoir had painted it in 1875, and yet it looked so fresh, as if he had created it only yesterday. How beautiful it was; she never tired of looking at it. The pearly tints and pink-blush tones of the model’s skin were incomparable, set off by the pale, faintly blue shadows on her shoulders which seemed to emanate from the foliage surrounding her.
What a master Renoir had been. The painting was suffused with light – shimmering light. But then to her, Renoir’s canvases always looked as though his brush had been dipped in sunlight. Lover of life, lover of women, Renoir had been the most sensual of painters, and his paintings reflected this, were full of vivid, pulsating life.
Laura moved on, stopped to gaze at a much larger painting, Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette. It represented gaiety and young love, and there was so much to see in it – the faces of the dancers, merry, sparkling with happiness, the handsome young men, their arms encircling the beautiful girls; how perfectly Renoir had captured their joie de vivre. His use of colour was superb: the blues and greens in the trees, the blues and creams and pinks in the girls’ dresses, the soft, clear yellow of the men’s straw boaters, and the…
‘Hello, Laura.’
Believing herself to be alone with the Renoirs, Laura jumped when she heard her name. Startled, she swung around. Surprise registered on her face, and she froze.
The man who stood a few feet away from her, went on, ‘It’s Philippe, Laura. Philippe Lavillard.’ He smiled, took a step towards her.
Laura recoiled imperceptibly. Dislike and a flick of anger curdled inside her.
The man was thrusting out his hand, still smiling warmly.
Reluctantly, Laura took it, touching her fingers quickly to his and then pulling them away. This man had always spelled disaster and trouble. She could hardly believe he had run into her like this.
‘I thought you were in Zaire,’ she managed to say at last, wondering how to get rid of him. There was a slight pause before she added, ‘Claire told me you were…living in Africa.’
‘I am. I arrived in Paris a couple of days ago. Actually, I’m en route to the States. I’m going to see the head of the CDC.’
‘The CDC?’ she repeated, sounding puzzled.
‘The Center for Disease Control. In Atlanta. I have some meetings there.’
‘Claire mentioned you were working on Ebola in Zaire.’