Crossings Read online

  “I can't live without her, Harry. … I can't. …” Armand had stared at him in bereft horror as Harrison nodded slowly, tears in his own eyes. He remembered his own pain of eighteen years before only too well. And ironically, Armand was exactly the same age Harrison had been when he lost Arabella, he was forty-three years old.

  But Armand and Odile had been married for twenty years, and the prospect of living on without her was almost more than he could bear. Unlike Harrison, they had no children. They had wanted two or three from the beginning, but Odile had never succeeded in getting pregnant, and they had resigned themselves long since to the absence of children in their lives. In fact, Armand had admitted to Odile once, he liked things better as they were. He didn't have to compete for her attention, and there had remained a honeymoon atmosphere between them for the past twenty years. And now, suddenly, their entire world was shattering around them.

  Although at first Odile didn't know that she had cancer, and Armand fought valiantly to keep it from her, she very soon understood the truth and that the end was near. And at last, in March, she died as Armand held her in his arms. Liane had come to see her that afternoon, carrying a bouquet of yellow roses. She sat by her bedside for hours, more for the comfort Odile gave her than any that she was able to give. Odile had exuded an aura of almost saintly resignation, and she was determined to leave Liane with her love and a last tender touch. As Liane had faltered for a moment in the doorway, fighting back the sobs that would come as soon as she left the house, Odile had looked at her with strength in her eyes for just a moment.

  “Take care of Armand for me when I am gone, Liane. You've taken good care of your father.” Odile had come to know him well, and knew that Liane had kept him from growing hardened or bitter. She had a gentle touch that softened every heart she came near. “Armand loves you,” she had said, smiling, “and he will need you and your father when I am gone.” She spoke of her death as if it were a trip she was taking. Liane had tried to deny to herself the truth about this beloved woman's condition. But there was no denying it to Odile. She wanted them all to face it, especially her husband, and then Liane. She wanted them to be prepared. Armand would try to avoid the truth by talking to her of trips to the seashore, to Biarritz, which they had loved when they were young, a cruise on a yacht along the coast of France perhaps the next summer, and another journey to Hawaii on one of the Crockett ships. But again and again she forced them all to face what was coming, what she knew, and what finally came that night after she had seen Liane for the last time.

  Odile had insisted that she wanted to be buried where she was, and not sent back to France. She didn't want Armand making that dismal trip alone. Both of her parents were dead, as well as his. She left with no regrets, except that she had had no children who would care for Armand. She had put that trust in Liane.

  The first months were a nightmare for Armand. He managed to carry on his work, but barely more than that. And despite his loss, he was expected, to some extent, to entertain visiting dignitaries to San Francisco with small diplomatic dinners. It was Liane who did everything for him, as she had for so long for her father. She carried a double responsibility then, despite the excellent staff at the Consulate of France. It was Liane who oversaw everything for Armand. That summer, her father scarcely saw her at Lake Tahoe, and she refused the offer of a trip to France. She had a mission to attend to, a promise she had made, which she fully intended to live up to—an awesome responsibility for a girl of nineteen.

  For a time Harrison wondered if there was something more to her work and efforts, and yet after watching Liane more closely for a time, he was certain there was not. And in a way, he knew that what she did for Armand helped her cope with her own sense of loss. She had been deeply stricken by the death of Odile. Never having known her own mother, there had always been a hunger in her soul for a woman she could relate to, someone whom she could talk to in a way she couldn't talk to her father, her uncle, or their friends. As a child, there had been governesses and cooks and maids, but few friends, and the women Harrison dallied with occasionally over the years never saw the inside of his home, or met his child. He kept all of that far, far from Liane. So it had been Odile who had filled that void, and then left it, gaping open, a dull ache that never seemed to dim, except when she was doing something for Armand. It was almost a way of being with Odile again.

  In a sense both Armand and Liane were in shock until the end of the summer. Odile had been dead for six months by then, and they both realized one September afternoon, as they sat in the garden at the Consulate, looking at the roses and speaking of Odile, that neither of them was crying as they spoke of her. Armand even told a funny story at Odile's expense and Liane laughed. They had survived it. They would live through it, each one because of the other. Armand had reached out a hand and taken Liane's long, delicate fingers in his own and held them. The tears sparkled then in his eyes as he looked at her.

  “Thank you, Liane.”

  “For what?” She tried to pretend she didn't know, but she did. He had done as much for her. “Don't be silly.”

  “I'm not. I'm very grateful to you.”

  “We've needed each other for the past six months.” She said it openly and directly, her hand comfortable in his. “Life is going to be very different without her.” It already was, for them both.

  He nodded, thinking quietly to himself over the past six months. “It is.”

  Liane went up to Tahoe for two weeks then, before going back to college, and her father was relieved to see her. He still worried about her a great deal, and he was still concerned about her helping Armand constantly. He himself was only too aware that it was too much like her constant devotion to him. And Odile de Villiers had long since convinced Harrison that Liane needed other pastimes than caring for a lonely man. She was a young girl, and there was much that she should do. The year before, she had been scheduled to make her debut, but when Odile fell ill, she had refused.

  Harrison brought it up to Liane again in Tahoe, saying that she had mourned for long enough and that the debutante parties would do her good. She insisted that they seemed silly to her, and wasteful somehow, all that money spent on dresses and parties and dances. Harrison stared at her in amazement. She was one of the richest young women in California, heiress to the Crockett Shipping lines, and it seemed extraordinary to him that the thought of the expense should even cross her mind.

  In October, when she went back to Mills, she had less time to help Armand with his dinner parties, but he was on his feet again and fending well for himself, although he still felt Odile's absence sorely, as he confessed to Harrison when they had lunch together at his club.

  “I won't lie to you, Armand.” Harrison looked at him over a glass of Haut-Brion ‘27. “You'll feel it for a long time. Forever. But not in the same way you did at first. You'll feel it in a moment … a remembered word … something she wore … a perfume … But you won't wake up every morning, feeling as though there's a two hundred thousand pound weight on your chest, the way you did at first.” He still remembered it all too clearly as he finished his wine and the waiter poured him a second glass. “Thank God, you'll never feel quite that agony again.”

  “I would have been lost without your daughter.” Armand smiled a gentle smile. There was no way to repay the kindness, to let his friend know how much the child had helped him, or how dear she was to him.

  “She loved you both dearly, Armand. And it helped her get over losing Odile.” He was a wise and canny man, and he sensed something then, even before Armand did, but he said nothing. He had a feeling that neither of them knew how much they needed each other, with or without Odile. Something very powerful had grown between them in the past six months, almost as though they were connected, as though they anticipated each other's needs. He had noticed it when Armand came up to Tahoe for the weekend, but he had said nothing. He knew that his instincts would have frightened them both, especially Armand, who might feel that he had in s
ome way betrayed Odile.

  “Is Liane very excited about the parties?” Armand was amused at Harrison's excitement. He knew that Liane didn't really care a great deal. She was making her debut more to please her father, being well aware of what was expected, and dutiful above all. He liked that about her. She was not dutiful in a blind, stupid way, but because she cared about other people. It was important to her to do the right thing, because she knew how other people felt about it. She would have preferred not have come out at all, yet she knew that her father would have been bitterly disappointed, so she went along with it for him.

  “To tell you the truth”—Harrison sighed and sat back in his seat—“I wouldn't admit it to her, but I think she's outgrown it.” She suddenly seemed much more grown-up than nineteen. She had grown up a great deal in the past year, and she had been called upon to act and think as a woman for so long that it was difficult to imagine her with the giggling girls going to a grand ball for the first time.

  And when the moment came, the truth of her father's words was more evident than ever. The others came out, blushing, nervous, frightened, excited to the point of being shrill, and when Liane sailed out slowly on her father's arm at her ball, she looked nothing less than regal in a white satin dress, her shimmering golden hair caught up in a little basket of woven pearls. She had the bearing of a young queen on her consort's arm, and her blue eyes danced with an inimitable fire as Armand watched her with a stirring in his soul.

  The party Harrison gave for her was the most dazzling party of all. It was held at the Palace on Market Street, with chauffeured limousines pulling up directly to the inner court. Two orchestras had been hired to play all night, and the champagne had been sent from France. Liane wore a white velvet gown, trimmed with white ermine in delicate ropes all around the hem. The gown, like the champagne, had been sent from France.

  “Tonight, my little friend, you look absolutely like a queen.” Liane and Armand circled the room slowly in a waltz. He was there as Harrison's guest. Liane was escorted by the son of one of her father's oldest friends, but she found him stupid and boring and was pleased with the reprieve.

  “I feel a little silly in this dress,” she had said, grinning. For an instant she had looked fifteen again, and suddenly, with a quick shaft of pain, Armand had longed for Odile. He wanted her to see Liane too, to share the moment, drink the champagne … but the moment passed, and he turned his attention to Liane again.

  “It's a pretty party, though, isn't it? Daddy went to so much trouble …” she said, but was thinking “so much expense.” It always irked her a little, made her feel a little guilty, but he supported worthwhile causes too, and if it made him happy, then why not. “Have you enjoyed yourself, Armand?”

  “Never more than at this exact moment.” He smiled, at his most courtly, and she laughed at the chivalry, so unusual from him. Usually he treated her like a child, or at least a younger sister or a favorite niece.

  “That doesn't even sound like you.”

  “Oh, doesn't it? And what exactly do you mean by that? Am I usually rude to you?”

  “No, you usually tell me that I haven't given the butler the right set of fish forks from the safe … or the Limoges is too formal for lunch … or—”

  “Stop! I can't bear it. Do I say all that to you?”

  “Not lately, although I confess, I miss it. Are you getting on all right?”

  “Not half as well lately. They don't even know which Limoges I mean, with you …” For a moment he wondered at what she had been saying. What she had been describing sounded like a marriage, but he couldn't have been like that with her … or could he? Was he so accustomed to Odile knowing all, that he had simply expected Liane to step into her shoes? How extraordinary of him, and how totally insensitive, but how much more extraordinary still that Liane had actually done all that she had for all those months. Suddenly it made him realize more than ever that he had missed her terribly since she had turned her attention back to school, not so much for the selection of the right Limoges, but because it had been so comforting to talk to her after a luncheon, or a dinner party, or in the morning, on the phone.

  “A penny for your thoughts.” She was teasing him a little, and his hand felt suddenly clumsy on her tiny waist.

  “I was thinking that you were quite right. I have been very rude.”

  “Don't be ridiculous. I'll come back and help now, as soon as all this debutante nonsense is over with next week.”

  “Haven't you anything better to do?” He seemed surprised. As lovely as she was, there had to be a dozen suitors waiting in the wings. “No boyfriends, no great loves?”

  “I think I'm immune.”

  “Now, that's an intriguing thought. A vaccination you've had, perhaps?” He teased and the music changed, but they stayed on the floor as Harrison Crockett watched. He was not displeased. “Tell me about this fascinating immunity of yours, Miss Crockett.”

  She sounded matter-of-fact as they danced. “I think I've lived alone with my father for too long. I know what men are like.”

  Armand laughed aloud. “Now, that's a shocking statement!”

  “No, it's not.” But she laughed too then. “I just meant that I know what it's like to run his house, pour his coffee in the morning, walk on tiptoe when he comes home from the office in a bad mood. It makes it difficult to take any of the young cubs seriously, they're so full of romance and ridiculous ideas. Half the time they have no idea what they're saying, they've never read a newspaper, they don't know the difference between Tibet and Timbuktu. And ten years from now, they'll come home from the office just as disagreeable as Daddy, and they'll snap at their wives over breakfast in just the same way. It's hard to listen to all that romantic gibberish and not laugh, that's all. I know what comes later.” She smiled up at him in a matter-of-fact way.

  “You're right, you've seen too much.” And he was sorry really. He remembered all the romantic “gibberish” he had shared with Odile, when she was twenty-one and he was twenty-three. They had believed every word they'd said and it had carried them for a long time, through hard times and into rugged, ghastly countries, through disappointments and a war. In a way, because of her life with her father, Liane had lost an important piece of her youth. But undoubtedly, in time, someone would come along, perhaps someone not quite so young as the rest, and she would fall in love, and then the complaints over the morning coffee would be outweighed by what she felt, and she would be carried off on her own cloud of dreams.

  “Now what are you thinking?”

  “That one of these days you'll fall in love, and it'll change all that.”

  “Maybe.” But she sounded both unconvinced and unconcerned. The dance ended and Armand escorted her back to her friends.

  But something strange had happened between them during the weeks of her debut. When Armand saw her again, he looked at her differently than he had before. She seemed more womanly to him all of a sudden, and it didn't really make sense to him. But the rest of the girls at the parties had all been so girlish, such children. In comparison, Liane was so much more grown-up, so much more poised. He felt suddenly awkward with her, less comfortable than he had before. He had taken her for granted for a long time, assumed somehow that she was just a very charming child. But on her twentieth birthday she looked more mature than ever, in a mauve moiré gown that turned her hair to spun gold and turned her eyes to violet as she smiled at him.

  Her birthday came just before the summer, and Armand was almost relieved when she went to Lake Tahoe for the summer months. She was no longer helping him at the Consulate, he was on his feet now, and he didn't want to take advantage of her. He saw Liane only when her father gave a dinner party, which was still very rare. And by sheer force of will Armand managed to stay away from Lake Tahoe until the end of the summer, when Harrison absolutely insisted that he come up for the Labor Day weekend, and when he saw her, he sensed instantly what Harrison had known for so long. He was deeply and passionately in love
with the girl he had known since she was scarcely more than a child. It had been a year and a half since Odile died, and although he still missed her terribly, his thoughts were now invaded constantly by Liane. He found himself staring at her all through the weekend, and when they danced on a warm summer night, he led her back to the table quickly, as though he could not bear to be that close to her without pulling her deeper into his arms. And oblivious of what he felt, she cavorted near him on the beach, her long, sensuous limbs cast across a deck chair on the sand. She rattled on as she had in years past, and told him funny stories, and she was more enchanting than ever, but as the weekend drew to a close, she began to sense his mood and his eyes upon her, and she grew quieter, as though being drawn slowly into the same spell.

  When they all returned to town, and Liane to college, Armand fought himself for several weeks and then finally, unable to bear it any longer, he called her and berated himself afterward for doing so. He had just called to say hello and see how she was, but she sounded strangely subdued when he called her, and he worried instantly that something might be wrong. Nothing was, she assured him in gentle tones, but she was feeling something she didn't quite understand and wasn't sure how to handle. She felt guilty toward Odile, and unable to talk to her father about the confusing emotions she felt. She was falling in love with Armand as desperately as he was falling in love with her. He was forty-five years old and she was not yet twenty-one, he was the widower of a woman she had loved and respected deeply, and she still remembered her parting words: “Take care of Armand for me … Liane … he will need you …” But he didn't need her that much anymore, and surely Odile had never meant for Liane to take care of him like that.