Danielle Steel - Summer’s End

Papa had led a fabulous life. And so had Deanna, for a while, watching everything, taking it all in, the sleek women, the interesting men, the dancing at El Morocco, the weekend trips to Beverly Hills. He had been a movie star once, a long time ago, a race driver, a pilot during the war, a gambler, a lover, a man with a passion for life and women and anything he could fly. He wanted Deanna to fly too, wanted her to know what it was to watch over the world at ten thousand feet, sailing through clouds and living on dreams. But she had had her own dreams that were nothing like his. A quiet life, a house where they stayed all the time, a stepmother who did not hide behind “in a minute” or an always locked door. At fourteen she was tired of El Morocco, and at fifteen she was tired of dancing with his friends. At sixteen she had managed to finish school, and desperately wanted to go to Vassar or Smith. Papa insisted it would be a bore. So she painted instead, on sketch pads and canvases she took with her wherever they went. She drew on paper tablecloths in the South of France, and the backs of letters from his friends, having no friends of her own. She drew on anything she could get her hands on. A gallery owner in Venice had told her that she was good, that if she stuck around, he might show her work. He didn’t of course. They left Venice after a month, and Florence after two, Rome after six, and Paris after one, then finally came back to the States, where Papa promised her a home, a real one this time, and maybe even a real-live stepmother to go with it. He had met an American actress in Rome-“someone you’ll love,” he had promised, as he packed a bag for the weekend at her ranch somewhere near L.A.

This time he didn’t ask Deanna to come along. This time he wanted to be alone. He left Deanna at the Fairmont in San Francisco, with four hundred dollars in cash and a promise to be back in three days. Instead he was dead in three hours, and Deanna was alone. Forever this time. And back where she had started, with the threat of a “wonderful school.”

But this time the threat was short-lived. There was no money left. For a wonderful school or anything else. None. And a mountain of debts that went unpaid. She called the long-forgotten relatives of her mother. They arrived at the hotel and took her to live with them. “Only for a few months, Deanna. You understand. We just can’t. You’ll have to get a job, and get your own place when you get on your feet.” A job. What job? What could she do? Paint? Draw? Dream. What difference did it make now that she knew almost every piece in the Uffizi and the Louvre, that she had spent months in the Jeu de Paume, that she had watched her father run with the bulls in Pamplona, had danced at El Morocco and stayed at the Ritz? Who gave a damn? No one did. In three months she was moved in with a cousin and then with another aunt. “For a while, you understand.” She understood it all now, the loneliness, the pain, the seriousness of what her father had done. He had played his life away. He had had a good time. Now she understood what had happened to her mother, and why. For a time she came to hate the man she had loved. He had left her alone, frightened, and unloved.

Providence had come in the form of a letter from France. There had been a small case pending in the French courts, a minor judgment, but her father had won. It was a matter of six or seven thousand dollars. Would she be so kind as to have her attorney contact the French firm? What attorney? She called one from a list she got from one of her aunts, and he referred her to an international firm of lawyers. She had gone to their offices at nine o’clock on a Monday morning, dressed in a little black dress she had bought with her father in France. A little black Dior, with a little black alligator bag he had brought her back from Brazil, and the pearls that were all that her mother had left her. She didn’t give a damn about Dior, or Paris, or Rio, or anything else. The promised six or seven thousand dollars was a king’s ransom to her. She wanted to give up her job and go to art school day and night. In a few years she’d make a name for herself with her art. But in the meantime maybe she could live on the six thousand for a year. Maybe.

That was all that she wanted when she walked into the huge wood-paneled office and met Marc-Edouard Duras for the very first time.

“Mademoiselle…” He had never had a case quite like hers. His field was corporate law, complex international business cases, but when the secretary had relayed her call, he had been intrigued. When he saw her, a delicate child-woman with a frightened beautiful face, he was fascinated. She moved with mystifying grace, and the eyes that looked into his were bottomless. He ushered her to a seat on the other side of the desk, and looked very grave. But his eyes danced as they talked their way through the hour. He too loved the Uffizi, he too had once spent days at a time in the Louvre; he had also been to São Paulo and Caracas and Deauville. She found herself sharing her world with him and opening windows and doors that she had thought were sealed forever. And she had explained about her father. She told him the whole dreadful tale, as she sat across from him, with the largest green eyes he had ever seen and a fragility that tore at his heart. He had been almost thirty-two at the time, certainly not old enough to be her father, and his feelings were certainly not paternal. But nonetheless he took her under his wing. Three months later she was his wife. The ceremony was small and held at city hall; the honeymoon was spent at his mother’s house in Antibes, followed by two weeks in Paris.

And by then she understood what she had done. She had married a country as well as a man. A way of life. She would have to be perfect, understanding-and silent. She would have to be charming and entertain his clients and friends. She would have to be lonely while he traveled. And she would have to give up the dream of making a name for herself with her art. Marc didn’t really approve. In the days when he courted her, he had been amused, but it was not a career he encouraged for his wife. She had become Madame Duras, and to Marc that meant a great deal.

Over the years she gave up a number of dreams, but she had Marc. The man who had saved her from solitude and starvation. The man who had won her gratitude and her heart. The man of impeccable manners and exquisite taste, who rewarded her with security and sable. The man who always wore a mask.

She knew that he loved her, but now he rarely expressed it as he had done before. “Shows of affection are for children,” he explained.

But that would come too. They conceived their first child in less than a year. How Marc had wanted that baby! Enough to show her once more how much he loved her. A boy. It would be a boy. Because Marc said so. He was certain, and so was Deanna. She wanted only that. His son. It had to be; it was the one thing that would win her his respect and maybe even his passion for a lifetime. A son. And it was. A tiny baby boy with a whisper in his lungs. The priest was called only moments after the birth and christened him Philippe-Edouard. In four hours the baby was dead.

Marc took her to France for the summer and left her in the care of his mother and aunts. He spent the summer working in London, but he came back on weekends, holding her close and drying her tears, until at last she conceived again. The second baby died too, another boy. And having Marc’s child became her obsession. She dreamed only of their son. She even stopped painting. The doctor put her to bed when she became pregnant for the third time. Marc had cases in Milan and Morocco that year, but he called and sent flowers and, when he was at home, sat at her bedside. Once more he promised that she would have his son. This time he was wrong. The long-awaited heir was a girl, but a healthy baby, with a halo of blonde hair and her father’s blue eyes. The child of Deanna’s dreams. Even Marc resigned himself and quickly fell in love with the tiny blonde girl. They named her Pilar and flew to France to show her to his mother. Madame Duras bemoaned Deanna’s failure to produce a son. But Marc didn’t care. The baby was his. His child, his flesh. She would speak only French; she would spend every summer in Antibes. Deanna had felt feeble flutterings of fear, but she reveled in the joy of motherhood at last.

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