The Last Will And Testament Of Daphné Le Marche

Chapter 5

Matilde

Matilde adjusted the collar on her black Dior coat, aware that all the eyes of society were on her, and then genuflected at the altar of Sainte-Chapelle.

She had stopped believing in anything when Camille died, but Daphné had believed in God, or so Celeste had said when she planned this spectacle of a funeral.

Daphné’s coffin was lying in state, covered in what seemed to be one hundred amber roses, the heady scent mixing with the frankincense that was burning in the brass censers on the altar.

Slipping into a pew further down the back of the church, Matilde looked around at the attendance. A decent enough showing of the right sort of people, she thought, and watched as Paul Le Brun walked up the side of the aisle and slipped into a seat.

News of her daughter’s affair with Le Brun had made the gossip pages for a day, until a terrorist threat overtook all other news, and Celeste was spared of too much humiliation. Still, people stared at Paul when he arrived, and she saw their heads joined in covert whispering.

Celeste could do so much better, she thought, as she noted his slightly coloured hair. Matilde was an expert at spotting three things: plastic surgery, hair colouring and sexual attraction.

It had proved to be a very valuable set of skills over the years. She had worked it to her benefit, finding lovers for herself and for her friends, and knowing the exact point in which to topple someone’s ego with a well-placed barb about any work they had done to their appearance.

Matilde was known within her circle as a sharp wit; to those outside of it, she was just a bitch.

More faces, known and unknown, walked into the church and soon it was a sea of black with hushed gossip sending waves through the sacred space.

Finally, Celeste and Robert arrived, arm in arm, Robert’s face looking concerned and upset, but not so much that he might cause any lines, thought Matilde, with a roll of her eyes.

God, being married to a fop with an unquenchable sexual appetite had been exhausting, and even if Camille hadn’t died, she would have left him anyway. She told him then and still stood by her statement. She needed a rest from him, the sex, and his lies.

She saw Celeste glance at her and she raised her head in approval. Celeste had done a wonderful job, with so little time to organise everything. Of course Robert had dumped it on his daughter; he was a lazy son of a bitch, she thought.

Daphné’s funeral had only just made the French rule that all funerals needed to have taken place by the sixth day but Matilde knew that people wouldn’t miss the chance to see the fall of the last of the Le Marche family.

There were more gossips in this church than friends, thought Matilde, as the priest stood at the altar and the ceremony began, and she stood with the rest of the crowd to say goodbye to Daphné Le Marche, the woman who saved her daughter.

* * *

Matilde was the face of Le Marche when she was nineteen, after Daphné decided that they needed to bring in a model to represent the brand and become more current.

By twenty-one, she was dating Robert. At twenty-two, she was pregnant with Camille.

And at twenty-three, she married him, but only after Robert had been threatened with disownment by Daphné.

Camille had changed Robert’s mind about marriage. The moment the child was placed in his arms, he adored her and that was enough for Matilde to forgive him for his transgressions.

There was no father as devoted as him to Camille, and then came Celeste. He would get up to them in the night, which was rare, according to her friends in Paris, and he took them to school. He knew everything that was going on in their lives and their friends and was as much fun as they could wish with a father.

He drove them everywhere. No matter where they wanted to go, he took them, speeding in the latest sports car and bringing back a treat for whoever was at home.

Matilde felt her eyes sting with unshed tears as she remembered, or was it from the incense. She tried to focus on the coffin and the roses, but her mind would not stay with her, and she felt it wander off again and there she was, back as though nothing had changed, and yet everything was about to be shattered.

‘Can you take the girls to ballet?’ Matilde had asked, knowing he would.

‘I’m not going.’ Celeste had pouted. ‘Camille got new shoes and I didn’t.’

Matilde didn’t have time for Celeste’s sulking.

‘Go to ballet, Celeste. You had new shoes last month, and the reason Camille got them was because her feet have grown so much.’

Matilde had looked at her long-legged daughter, who had the best of both of her parents’ looks. The blonde beauty of Matilde, and the fine, aquiline Le Marche nose.

She could model one day. Matilde and Daphné had discussed this quite often, while Robert denounced her plans.

‘No, Camille will take over Le Marche with me one day,’ he had said proudly and Matilde had noticed the shadow cross Celeste’s face.

‘And then Celeste can join when she’s old enough,’ added Matilde.

‘I don’t want to work with Daddy and Camille, I hate them,’ Celeste had said, lashing out as she did when she was hurt.

She was so like Robert, Matilde always said to people when they asked about her demeanour, or was it because of Robert.

The priest was now swinging the censer around, the smoke billowing out, lifting up the prayers to heaven, and Matilde felt the tears fall.

The policeman had escorted her to the hospital, with a screaming Celeste, who didn’t want to go, and had to be lifted into the back seat of the police car.

Robert was almost unscathed. Camille had died instantly.

It was rare Matilde let herself remember that time, but she was at the mercy of her memory as she listened to the prayers, and remembered the year after Camille had died.

Elisabeth and Henri had brought lovely Sibylla out from Australia to try to be a companion for Celeste, but Celeste had hated her on sight and the trip was a disaster, with Robert and Henri having harsh words before they abruptly left.

What the argument was about, Matilde never knew and she never asked, too caught up in her own pain to care.

Only a year later, Henri had died. The Le Marche family had lost two members in two years. It was the sort of thing that the gossipy society Matilde moved in thrived on.

So Matilde drank, and Robert slept with anything that had a heartbeat, and Celeste was ignored.

Matilde wasn’t proud of her mothering. Robert was always the better parent when they were small, but when Camille died, he stopped parenting and Celeste was left with no one.

So she and Robert separated and they sent Celeste away. Out of sight, out of mind, she had thought, but it wasn’t Camille she dreamed of; it was Celeste.

And when Celeste broke down about her unhappiness and had tried to kill herself, Daphné had stepped in.

Without Daphné, Matilde might have no living children, and she said a silent prayer for the woman under the roses.

She loved Celeste, she just didn’t know how to help her. When she had arrived in Nice last week, her face all tear-stained and so thin, Celeste had wanted to hug her and put her to bed and feed her soup and bread and watch her sleep, but the opportunity for her to be a mother had long gone.

Celeste had resisted hugs, and instead went out on the balcony and stared into the horizon. She refused to speak of her pain, even though Matilde knew it was that arrogant Paul Le Brun, and she glanced at him in the church. Handsome yes, but what good is handsome when you’re married to someone else.

Oh, Celeste, don’t choose a man like your father, she thought, looking at the back of Celeste’s blonde chignon at the front of the church.

So many times Matilde wished she had something wise to say to Celeste, or that Celeste would even listen, but she was scared of her daughter now.

Scared she would lose her like she lost Camille, scared of her temper and her biting tongue, and scared of her restlessness.

Matilde stayed in the past, as the service went on, and when it finished, she was one of the last to exit the church and that’s when she saw him.

A man, as handsome as any man she had ever met, in a navy suit, and silk tie, with a crisp white shirt, and a beautiful coat draped over his arm. He had dark, thick hair, cut close to his head, and slightly tanned skin, but it was natural, she could tell. He walked slightly beside her, and they stopped at the entrance of the church, waiting for the crowd to exit.

‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said in her ear and she felt a ripple of something in her body—fear or lust, she wasn’t sure, but God knows, he was too young for her and too handsome to be good for any woman.

‘It is not my loss,’ she said firmly, turning to see eyes of lapis blue. ‘It is my daughter and ex-husband’s loss.’

‘But you were sad, non? I saw it in your face, you had many memories cover your face during the service.’

Matilde felt herself frown. Where had he been sitting? Why had he been watching her?

‘Who are you?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes. He was cunning, she thought, cunning was always hard to manage. Daphné was cunning.

‘Dominic Bertiull,’ he said, extending a hand that Matilde didn’t take.

She sniffed as though the name meant nothing to her, and she pushed her way into the crowd and away from the blue-eyed libertine, who still followed her, but Matilde knew everyone who mattered, that was her job in life.

‘It must be hard for Robert to have to take over the company when he has not really worked in it for a long time,’ said Dominic in a hushed whisper that smacked of false concern.

So the vultures have started to circle, she thought, and she wondered if she should tell Robert that Dominic Bertiull, the corporate raider and slash and burn CEO, was at his mother’s funeral.

And then she remembered Camille. Why should she care if Dominic took Le Marche from under Robert’s rule? He had lost Camille, now he could lose the company he had always desired to be at the helm of, and only then did Matilde feel that justice would be served.

‘I don’t know what Robert does and what he will do next. My only concern is for my daughter, please excuse me,’ Matilde said and, with a push, she forced her way through the crowd to Celeste’s side, where she took her daughter’s hand.

Glancing back to the steps of the church, she saw Dominic Bertiull staring at her and she wasn’t sure if she should feel flattered or scared, or a little of both.

Chapter 6

Elisabeth, London, 1983

In London, 1983, the cultural landscape was shifting. Nothing was as it seemed and the roles that people were so familiar with were changing before people’s eyes.

Boy George was changing music with his gender-bending costumes and make-up, a film about a female welder and dancer was number one and Margaret Thatcher had just been re-elected for a second term as Prime Minister.

It was also the year Elisabeth Herod met Henri Le Marche.

As with the most extraordinary of relationships, their meeting was completely ordinary. Elisabeth worked at the bookstore, Hatchards in Piccadilly, and Henri had asked her opinion on The Name of the Rose. She had to admit to him that she hadn’t read the book, but she had heard only good things.

She decided that Henri had a look of a poet, taking in his rumpled suit but expensive silk tie and uncombed hair. His French accent was as delicious as a chocolate soufflé and she thought he would be the perfect man to lose her virginity to while she was in London.

He asked what was the last book she read, and she took him to the poetry corner and pulled out a slim volume and handed it to him.

Henri seemed as interested in her, which was lovely since her dark hair, dark eye combination seemed so uninteresting to English boys at the time. Samantha Fox was on Page Three of the Sun and the boys who were living in the hostel had images of her stuck to every bathroom wall.

Just seeing Ms Fox’s large breasts made Elisabeth feel uncomfortable, and she always glanced down at her own chest, lacking in everything compared to Samantha’s.

Henri turned the book over in his hands and then read aloud in French, ‘Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin—Poèmes.’ And then looked up at her. His blue eyes widened, and his dark hair fell over his face.

She quelled a desire to move it from his forehead so she could see his eyes again.

‘You speak French?’

‘Oui,’ she said, aware her Australian accent might ruin the romance of the moment.

‘And you read French poetry?’ he asked, a smile playing on his face.

‘Oui,’ she said again. Oh yes, she was definitely flirting now.

From the corner of her eye, Elisabeth could see her manager coming towards them and she snatched the book from him and put it back on the shelf.

‘Elisabeth, are you helping this gentleman?’ asked Bernard, the snivelling manager who reminded her of a court fop.

‘She is,’ said Henri, in an accent somewhat thicker than he had used with Elisabeth. ‘She is so knowledgeable and her taste is sublime, you are very lucky to have such a woman to work for you.’

Bernard almost bowed and then gave a rare, thin-lipped smile to Elisabeth. ‘She is a wonderful girl, who knew an Australian could be educated as well as she is. Please let me know if you need anything else.’

Bernard left them, walking backwards, and bumped into a table of discounted travel books. When Elisabeth turned her attention back to Henri, he was holding the book of poems again and he read to her,

‘Fiancée of a million deviations

what do you hide up your sleeve?

Is it a postcard

from the place where dreams are discarded?

Is it your revenge plan:

a vulture’s kiss: stolen and flown?’

Elisabeth felt her heart tighten and her breath squeezed her lungs until she thought she would explode.

‘You translated that from French? So quickly?’ she asked.

‘I know Louise de Vilmorin’s work,’ he said. ‘Did you know she was engaged to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?’

Elisabeth nodded and she wondered if in fact he would be more than just the thief of her innocence.

‘Dinner? Tonight?’ he asked, tucking the book under his arm.

‘OK,’ was all she could reply.

‘I will pick you up. Where do you live?’ he asked politely.

Elisabeth thought of the grotty hostel and the pictures of Samantha Fox.

‘Can I meet you here? I work till late,’ she lied.

‘Of course,’ he answered and he reached down and kissed her on each cheek.

‘Au revoir, Elisabeth,’ he said and then left her alone while he paid for the book at the counter.

It was only after that she realised she didn’t know his name and she rushed to the counter to see if he had left a clue with his credit card.

‘He paid cash,’ said the girl at the till. ‘Wasn’t half handsome, wasn’t he?’

Elisabeth spent the rest of the afternoon as though flying on a flock of wild birds, seeing London below as a fantastic adventure that finally she was beginning to undertake.

* * *

Henri was waiting for her when she left the bookstore at six in the evening. The streetlamps were turning on and the crisp autumn air made everyone look like smokers as they hurried home. Henry was leaning against a post box, wearing the same suit as earlier in the day, but this time with a camel coat draped over his shoulders.

He looked incongruous against the streetscape with a group of punks walking past, their hair pointed upwards and their mouths downturned.

‘Hello,’ she said as she walked towards him. She was aware of the unfashionable coat she wore compared to his but she had a silk scarf she had found in lost property and had artfully wound it around her neck, just like she had seen Catherine Deneuve do in a television commercial.

He reached out and touched the scarf, ‘So chic,’ he said with a smile and then leaned down and kissed her on the cheek again.

He smelt of tobacco and soap and something else she couldn’t quite name.

‘What is that scent?’ she whispered in his ear while his face was still close to hers.

‘Opoponax,’ he said back to her.

She pulled away. ‘A pop of what?’

Henri laughed and she thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

‘Opoponax, it’s the sweet cousin of myrrh. It was used by the Ancient Romans as incense and helps people learn others secrets and portends the future like the Sibyls.’

Elisabeth thought her legs would give way and she clutched his arm.

Henri, however, seemed calm as he held her steady.

‘You need a drink, oui?’

‘Oui,’ she said feebly and allowed him to lead her to the bar at Claridge’s.

She didn’t know men who wore a scent like Henri and even knew its history. Her father had an old bottle of Eau Savage that Elisabeth’s mother had bought duty free on a trip to Singapore, and he wore it only at special events, which was about three times a year.

Henri helped her out of her coat, and she felt ashamed of her wool skirt and plain white blouse so she kept the scarf around her neck.

‘What will you drink?’ he asked her and Elisabeth shrugged as she slid into the private booth.

‘I don’t know, what do you think?’

She didn’t think she could ask for a pint at Claridge’s but she didn’t know any other drink other than cask wine.

‘Champagne,’ he stated and then ordered a bottle of Taittinger for them with a selection of cheeses to share.

Elisabeth realised how hungry she was and placed her hand on her stomach to stop it protesting about the paltry cup of soup that had masqueraded as lunch.

‘I don’t know your name.’ she said suddenly, as though speaking her thoughts aloud.

‘Henri Le Marche,’ he answered, as he sat back in the booth.

‘I’m Elisabeth Herod,’ she said and she put out her hand in a formal manner.

Henri laughed and took her hand and gallantly kissed it as Elisabeth laughed.

‘Sorry, I think it’s the environment, it’s very posh, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

‘Shall we go somewhere else?’ Henri asked, his handsome face now worried. ‘I didn’t know where you might like to go, but my mother always says Claridge’s is best when you’re in London.’

Elisabeth tried to hide her smile as she nodded in agreement but Henri noticed.

‘You don’t agree?’

‘I don’t really know,’ she said, deciding to be honest. ‘I’m from Australia, here on a gap year. The nicest place I’ve been to so far has been Harrods and even then the staff looked at me like I was going to steal something.’

Henri laughed. ‘You will tell me if you’re not happy here?’

The waiter arrived with the champagne and made a show of displaying it to Henri, who waved his approval with his hand.

When their glasses were filled, Henri picked up his glass. ‘To books,’ he said.

She felt herself smiling. ‘To books,’ she echoed and took a sip of the champagne, savouring the taste.

‘Gosh, that’s lovely,’ she said, as she watched the beads burst up in the glass.

‘It is,’ said Henri, and he took another sip. ‘Beeswax,’ he said then paused. ‘And blackberries.’

Elisabeth took a sip from her glass. ‘And apple,’ she added, remembering the cider she had drunk at her brother’s twenty-first birthday party.

Henri beamed at her. ‘Yes, apple.’

The waiter brought the cheese and they were silent until he left.

‘Do you work in the wine area?’ she asked, watching how he held his glass by the stem and not the bulb.

‘No, I work in the family business,’ he said, leaning forward and smearing Brie onto a wafer-thin piece of toast and handing it to her.

Elisabeth took the offering gratefully and popped it into her mouth.

‘We make cosmetics,’ he said with a shrug. ‘My grandfather started it and now my mother runs it.’

‘And you will take over one day?’ asked Elisabeth, as he handed her more cheese.

‘I hope not,’ said Henri with a sigh.

‘What would you rather do?’ Elisabeth sipped her champagne, as he thought.

‘I would like to write books,’ he said.

She thought her face would crack at the width of her smile.

‘Does your mother think you should write books?’ she asked.

Henri smiled now. ‘My mother doesn’t care what I do, as long as I’m happy. It is my brother Robert who will get the company one day.’

‘So why are you in London?’ she asked, feeling somewhat fortified by the champagne and cheese.

‘My mother lives here most of the year, she prefers London for business, so I come and visit her.’

Disappointment rose in Elisabeth that his would be a fleeting visit and she wouldn’t see him again.

‘But now I know Mademoiselle Elisabeth is in London, I will be here for a while, I think.’

She felt herself smile again and wondered if he could read her mind, or was the opoponax tapping her secrets for Henri’s benefit.

‘What are Sibyls?’ she asked, thinking of his comment about the scent he was wearing, grasping at a casual conversation to try to balance out the sexual tension she was feeling.

‘They were prophetesses or Sibyllas from Ancient Greece, who could predict the future. They were very wise and gave sage advice to the priests, but they only spoke in riddles.’

‘It’s a beautiful word “Sibylla”,’ said Elisabeth, rolling the word around her mouth like a sweet.

‘Yes, if I have a daughter, I would like to call her Sibylla. I think she will be very wise, but that, of course, would come from her mother.’

He looked at her pointedly as he said this and Elisabeth choked on the invisible sweet.

‘More champagne,’ said Henri, as he lifted the bottle from the silver bucket and refilled her glass and then his.

‘Now tell me all about you,’ he said. ‘And Australia, I’ve always wanted to go there.’

Elisabeth went through the details quickly. An only child of two working-class parents, she had excelled at school and received a scholarship to a private girls’ school. This led to an acceptance at university to study English, which she hoped to be able to teach at high school one day.

‘But why high school? Teach at university, become a professeur des universités.’ He clapped his hands happily at his decision on her behalf.

‘You will be the beauty and the brains in your long robe, all the men will desire you and be intimidated by you.’

Elisabeth laughed and blushed. The need to kiss him was disconcerting, or was it the champagne?

‘Tell me about you,’ she said, desperate to steer the topic from her.

Henri Le Marche was twenty-six years old and the second son of Daphné and Yves Le Marche. What he lacked in ambition he made up for in charm and intelligence.

‘You cannot make a living reading,’ she said, ‘unless you work in a library.’

Henri thought this sounded perfectly reasonable and decided to one day open his own library in Paris when he received his share of the business.