Empire

house?”

There was a dance that night at The Elms, given by the Burke-Roches. When Mrs. Delacroix announced that she was going home early, Caroline went with her. “Tomorrow,” she said, “I must spend the morning on the telephone, talking to Washington.”

“When I was young, I danced all night. I was always in love.”

“I am not in love, Mrs. Delacroix. So I sleep… and talk on the telephone.”

“We enjoyed ourselves more. There were no telephones, of course.” They were seated in the small study off the drawing room. Although it was late July, the night was cool and a fire was burning. Mrs. Delacroix poured herself brandy, while Caroline took Apollinaris water. The old woman laughed. “Mamie’s completely under that butler’s thumb. He’s convinced her that in all great English houses, Apollinaris water must first be boiled.”

“I would boil him if I were her.”

Mrs. Delacroix held up a small painting on ivory. “This is your father, and my daughter.”

“I thought you had no painting of him except in uniform?”

“I suppose that’s because I never look at him when I look at this. I see only Denise. She was so happy. Can you tell?”

But Caroline, like the old woman, only saw what she wanted to see-not the pretty rather banal girl but the round-faced, small-lipped young man whom she had never known, and could not associate with the red-faced loud figure of her own youth. “They were both happy,” said Caroline, neutrally; and gave the picture back.

“Your mother came here once in the summer of ’76. She was beautiful.”

“She was happy, too. Wasn’t she?”

“My daughter died, giving birth to Blaise.” The spider’s web across the old woman’s face tautened suddenly: had a fly been trapped? was the spider, ever watchful, close by? “Your mother was her best friend, at that time.”

“This is all before I was born.” Caroline did not like the direction that the conversation was taking. “My father never spoke-to me, at least-of his first wife. He seldom spoke of my mother, either. So Blaise and I are each motherless.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Delacroix crossed her tiny ankles, just visible beneath the watered pale blue silk of her evening gown. “It is curious how Emma died in much the same way as Denise, as a result of giving birth.”

“Emma. At last. You have said her name. Now tell me, was she really so dark? And why?” Caroline hurled the question at the old lady, who visibly winced; then rallied. “Your mother,” she said, most evenly, “killed my daughter, and that is the precise nature-and quality-of her darkness.”

Caroline had often observed women swoon either from too-tight corseting or as an act of desperate policy. She wondered whether or not this was a proper moment for her to experiment, entirely as a matter of policy, with a sudden dead-faint. But she recalled herself. She would give blow for blow. “How was this… murder, as you do not quite call it, achieved?”

“Denise had been warned that she could never have a child. Your mother encouraged her to have one, by the man your mother wanted to marry, even then, your father-to-be, Colonel Sanford.”

Caroline bared her teeth in what she hoped might be mistaken by firelight for a young girl’s sweet smile. “I find no darkness here. Only your surmise. How does one woman encourage another to have a child, when each knows the consequences?”

“There was a lady-I use the word ironically-who specialized in such matters. Emma sent for her. Emma got her to say-paid her to say-that Denise would survive. Since my daughter wanted a child very much, she had one. Then she died, and her husband went on to marry…”

“Darkness?”

“Yes. Then you were born, and in due course she died, a proper vengeance I always thought.”

“I do not believe your story, Mrs. Delacroix, nor can I understand why you choose to tell me so terrible a thing, assuming you believe what you’ve told me, when I am a guest-briefly, may I say-in your house.”

“I hope not briefly.” The old woman poured herself more brandy. “I have told you because I cannot tell my grandson.”

“Are you afraid-of Blaise?”

The head, silver hair aglitter with diamonds, nodded. “I am afraid. I don’t know what Blaise might do, if I were to tell him.”

“As he seems to have been born entirely without conscience, he will do nothing at all. He will not be interested.”

“Now you are unkind to him. You see, he is so like her.” Quite unexpectedly, tears began to leak from the bright black eyes. “I look at him, and it’s Denise come back to me. You see, I’d given her up. The way we must always give up the dead until such time… So, having forgot my child, let her go, kept only a picture or two, poor likenesses all, she suddenly comes back to me, alive and young, and I look at her-him-and can’t believe what I see. Think I am dreaming. I see the same eyes, hair, skin, voice…”

“Blaise is very much a male.”

“A beloved child is without gender to its creatrix, as you may have the good-or bad-fortune to discover.” Mrs. Delacroix withdrew a lace glove from her left hand; dried her eyes with the wadded glove. “He is my heir, not that I am as wealthy as people suppose.”

“Good. Perhaps you can then persuade him to give me my share of our father’s estate.”

But the old woman was now removing, one by one, her huge old-fashioned diamond rings, a slow and complicated process, for the fingers were bent with arthritis. “I shall also remember you in my will.”

“I trust that when you come to write it you will not mistake a one for a seven like my father.” But Caroline knew that there is no egotism to compare with that of someone old, embarked upon a crucial venture, involving money.

“Blaise has treated you badly. I don’t know why. But I suspect why. I think, somehow, he knows what happened.”

Caroline shook her head. “If he knew, he would have told me long ago. Also, if he knew, he would not, I’m afraid, care at all. He lives only for himself.”

“Your father knew.” Mrs. Delacroix now only heard what she chose to hear. “He never dared to see me, not that I would have spoken to him. He settled in France to avoid me, and what he’d done, what she had done.”

Caroline rose. “I am tired, Mrs. Delacroix. I am also ill-pleased.” In anger, Caroline’s English began to take on a somewhat archaic sound. She longed to burst into a proper French tirade.

“Surely not with me, my dear.” The old lady was now her gracious, formidable self again. She swept her rings into her reticule; and rose. “I have taken you into my confidence because, when I am dead, I want you to tell Blaise the true story.”

“I suggest,” said Caroline, “that you put it all in writing, as part of your will. Let him find out at the same time he gets the money. If you like, I’ll help you put it into French Alexandrines. They are particularly useful for this sort of-theater.”

“It’s not theater, my child. I only want you to-”

“Why want me for anything, since I am the daughter, in your eyes, of so much darkness?”

To Caroline’s astonishment, Mrs. Delacroix crossed herself, and whispered something in Latin. Then: “I believe in atonement.”

“I am to atone for my mother?” Without thinking, Caroline crossed herself, too.

“I think you must. Besides, you and Blaise are all that’s left of the Sanfords, the real ones, that is. So you must make up. This is one of the ways.”

“I can think of less hazardous ways.”

“I am sure you could.” In the falling firelight the small room had taken on a rosy color, and Mrs. Delacroix looked almost girlish, spider’s web erased. “Blaise is in Newport,” said the suddenly young-faced old woman, taking