The Black Swan

“Yes, there was one on the lake in the chateau grounds. It was beautiful ... so majestic. It gives an air of peace gliding there across the water. Then suddenly, it becomes vicious. One of the maids lost an eye when it attacked her-so he told me.”

“How absolutely terrible! I think it is a very good thing that you have come home. Now... Lucie. You have to look ahead. There must be no more brooding. It’s a mistake to live in the past. You have lost two people you love-cruelly and violently. But there are good things in the world. You’ve got to look for them.”

“I know, Rebecca, and I am going to try.”

She leaned forward and kissed me and, as I had all my life, I felt comforted by Rebecca. We knew that Rebecca’s stay would be brief as she could not leave her family for long. Two weeks was the most we could expect.

She said that when she left she was hoping to take me with her. I felt it would be restful to be at High Tor for a while.

When she met the Fitzgeralds she liked them very much. We saw them every day and a firm friendship was fast growing between the two families. They would come to luncheon or dinner and repay our hospitality with visits to the theater or the opera.

Rebecca said it had been a wonderful gesture of theirs to return home with me so that I did not have to travel alone. That was a test of friendship; and, of course, at that time I did not know them as well as I did now. And the more we knew them, the more our respect for them grew.

It was so pleasant, said Rebecca, to see a sister and brother so fond of each other; and it was rather touching to be aware of how they attempted all the time to look after each other. It had come about, of course, through the tragic loss of their parents. They were really very nice people. That was the general verdict.

I had almost made up my mind that I would go back with Rebecca when the letters came.

One was from Jean Pascal to Celeste, the other was for me from Belinda.

“Dear Lucie,” she wrote,

I am going to be married in six weeks’ time. Isn’t that exciting? Bobby insists.

He is so impatient.

He came down to the chateau as he had said he would and then we were officially engaged. There was a grand party to celebrate it. It was wonderful. Musicians playing in the great hall and in the gardens. Lots of grand people and mon pere displaying me with pride as his dear daughter. Nobody asked awkward questions as to where I had been all this time. They understand these matters in France. However, there I was, his dear daughter and her lovely fiancé.

Bobby is a darling. He does everything I want. He said he was sorry you weren’t here, and I told him how awful you had been... an absolute pig. After all we’d done for you... making a fuss of you... looking after you... and then you went off suddenly just because those people were going home. Bobby said he thought pigs were rather nice. He’s got a lot of them on his estate. But Bobby is like that. He likes everything. That’s because he’s so happy about us.