She felt them slip away from her as she walked into her hotel, like people she had loved, who had finally died. She was alone, as she always had been.

PART THREE

Alexandra





Chapter 10




The house on the Avenue Foch stood protected by a tall, impeccably trimmed hedge that shielded everything behind it from the pedestrians' view. There were gardens groomed to perfection, and a solid brick hôtel particulier built in the eighteenth century, with handsomely carved doors, brass knockers and knobs, beautiful shutters painted dark green, with silk and damask curtains hung at the windows.

It was a house closed off from a far more public world, shielded from all publicity, a house in which perfection reigned, filled with Fabergé objects and crystal chandeliers and impeccable antiquities. It was the house of the Baron and Baroness Henri de Morigny, one of France's oldest families. His was a house of great nobility and dwindling wealth, until he married the lovely daughter of old Comte de Borne fourteen years before. The house on the Avenue Foch had been a wedding present from the count, and as a gift to Henri, Alexandra had restored his family seat for him, a handsome chateau in Dordogne, and a hunting box in Sologne as well. And since then they had bought a summer house in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, where they went every year with their children. It was a life of considerable luxury, and endless grace. It was the only life Alexandra de Morigny had ever known, and she played the perfect wife at all times for her husband. She ran his house, planned his dinners, entertained his friends, followed his instructions, and brought up their two daughters, Axelle and Marie-Louise to perfection. The girls were the greatest joy in her life, and she sat at her desk with a quiet smile, thinking of them that afternoon. They would be home from school very soon, and she would walk the dogs with them in the Bois. It was a good chance to talk, to find out what was going on, who they liked, who they “hated,” who might be having trouble at school, and then they would come home for the girls to do their devoirs, have their bath, dine and play and go to bed. Alexandra always stayed with them until her own dinner with Henri. They were six and twelve, as different as night and day, and they were the joy and the laughter in her life. Marie-Louise was serious and a great deal like Henri, but Axelle was just as she had been as a child, a little bit shy, totally trusting, and enormously affectionate. It was wonderful just being with her, stroking her pale red curls and looking into those huge blue eyes. Alexandra's heart sang just thinking of it. And she sat smiling as she stared into space, and didn't hear his step on the highly polished parquet floor as he entered the room and watched her. He was almost in front of her before she awoke from her reverie, and she looked up to see the tall, handsome man she had married. He was fifty-nine years old, and powerfully built, with strong lines in his face, and hard eyes that bore into her, as they always did, as though he were about to ask a very important question. It was a face that was not often amused, but he was a man she could trust and depend on. And she respected him. She had fallen in love with him at nineteen, and they had been engaged for two years. Her father had wanted to be sure that she was not making a mistake or acting on an impulse. Henri was twenty-four years older than she after all, but she had been absolutely certain. She wanted someone just like her father, the old Comte de Borne. He had been sixty when she was born, or he would have been. He had adopted her when she was six years old, and he worshiped her. He had never had children of his own, and he had just lost his wife of forty years when he married her mother. He had gone to the south of France, to grieve, and instead he had met Margaret Gorham, doing precisely the same thing after the death of her husband. She was twenty-seven years old and it was a whirlwind romance and within six months they were married, and Pierre de Borne adopted Alexandra. And only he and Margaret shared the secret that she'd been adopted once before when she came to Margaret and George Gorham at the age of five in New York. It was not something anyone needed to know, and it was no longer important. She was Alexandra de Borne, and she was as dear to the count's heart as though she had been his natural daughter. Perhaps more so. She grew up cosseted and spoiled and adored as few children are, and in return she worshiped the man she knew as her father. It was to Pierre that she turned with every woe, or wish, or dream, sharing all her secrets with him, confessing her misdeeds, of which there were few, while Margaret looked on, content in every way, filled with love for her husband and child, and full of mischief of her own. Margaret was, in effect, the child of the family, pulling pranks on both of them, hiding unexpectedly, wearing ridiculous costumes to make them laugh. She was an oversized child who loved to laugh, and enjoy every moment. And Alexandra was oddly enough more like Pierre, affectionate, shy, and filled with admiration for Margaret's wild schemes and irresistible laughter.

Alexandra was protected and greatly loved and it surprised everyone when she fell in love at nineteen and said she wanted to get married. And Pierre de Borne was not pleased at the prospect of his daughter marrying Henri de Morigny, mostly because he was so much older. He also thought him far too serious, and a difficult man in the bargain. Morigny had never married before, and the old count knew that he'd been waiting for just the right girl, with an important family, an equally important fortune, and if at all possible, a title. And Alexandra certainly had all of that to offer him. But what did he offer her, her father asked her. Was he warm enough, would he be kind to her? Pierre talked constantly of it to Margaret, and she was just as concerned as he was. But Alexandra was positive she wanted Henri and never wavered. She was married at twenty-one at the church on their country estate in Rambouillet. Seven hundred people were there, from all of Europe's finest families. And they spent their honeymoon in Tahiti, drinking exotic punches and making love on the private beach of the house Henri had rented for her. And when they returned to Paris, Alexandra loved him with even greater passion than she had before, and all she wanted was to have his babies. It took them over a year to conceive, in spite of all of Henri's most romantic efforts.

Her father lived just long enough to hold his first grandchild, two years after Alexandra's marriage. And then he died peacefully in his sleep at the age of eighty-three. Margaret was bereft and Alexandra was stunned, she couldn't imagine a life without him, couldn't imagine not having his hand to hold, his wise eyes to look into. It made her suddenly extremely dependent on Henri, whom she adored and also a little bit frightened of him. He became suddenly all-important to her and she was obsessed by her fears of losing him too, and knew she couldn't have stood it. Alexandra had always had an irrational fear of losing the people she loved and who loved her. And it worried Margaret considerably because she thought Henri took advantage of it to control her. And in some ways he treated Alexandra like a child, someone to be scolded, and spoken to in firm tones and told what to do, as though she didn't know herself. In Margaret's eyes, he was more a father than a husband, and Alexandra did everything to please him, no matter how trivial or foolish. He had aspirations toward politics and it made him maniacal about appearances. Everything had to be perfect, constantly circumspect, Alexandra had to be impeccable at all times, the children had to be ten times more polite than any others. Margaret found it exhausting just having tea with them, and it worried her at times that Alexandra seemed to think it was all normal. Anything was all right, as long as it pleased her husband.

“That's just the way he is, Maman. He doesn't mean any harm. He's a serious man and he wants everything to be perfect.” Alexandra's own father had never been as demanding of his daughter or his wife, and he had had a marvelous sense of humor. Margaret found Henri a dead bore, in comparison to her late husband, but she never said it in so many words. All she wanted was Alexandra's happiness, it was all Pierre had ever wanted for her too. And he left her most of his fortune when he died, leaving Margaret more than enough to amuse herself with for another forty years. She was only forty-five when he died, and in many ways she seemed far younger, mostly because she enjoyed herself so much, and she was still very attractive. She was three years younger than Alexandra's husband.

Margaret de Borne always had a good time, something amusing to say, something outrageous and entertaining to do. She was pursued by every eligible man in Europe, and she had no desire whatever to remarry. She had been happy with George years before, and she had had everything she wanted with Pierre. There was no point trying to top that, she knew she never could and didn't want to try it. But Alexandra was another story, and Margaret worried about her more than Alexandra suspected.

Henri expected so much from her. So much so that Pierre and Margaret had decided not to tell him of Alexandra's background, which she herself didn't remember. She only remembered “Papa” as she called Pierre, although Margaret knew she had some vague other memories as well, but they were long buried. She no longer seemed to have any recollection whatsoever of George Gorham. They had told her simply that buried deep in her memory was the fact that she'd been adopted by Pierre after her father died, a man she no longer remembered, and it never occurred to her, nor did they tell her, that she had in fact been born of other parents entirely, that Margaret was not her mother at all, that she had been adopted Once before, after her own parents' tragic death. Pierre had been adamant with Margaret before he died. He did not want Alexandra's husband to know anything about either of her adoptions. But he had said nothing about it to Alexandra, not wanting to stir the memories or her conscience. She was such a decent girl, she might have felt obliged to tell her husband. It was much easier if she didn't remember. Her father knew Henri well enough to know what a maniac he was about his bloodline.

And Margaret did not disagree with her husband about their son-in-law, so for Alexandra's sake, she also remained silent. And remarkably, after so many years, no one even remembered that Alexandra was adopted.

And Margaret rejoiced when Marie-Louise was born, and then mourned when Alexandra lost a baby boy a year later. And then came Axelle after an excruciating pregnancy and endless labor. And after that, her doctor urged her not to try again. He told her she couldn't have any more children without jeopardizing her life. And she was content with the two little girls they had. Only Henri was bitterly disappointed, and resentful for a long time that she had not produced a son for him. And for years after Axelle was born, he told her so whenever he was angry. And always made her feel vaguely guilty toward her husband, as though she had somehow shortchanged him, and owed him something more because of her failure.

The loss of a son was a cross Henri had to bear and having Margaret de Borne as a mother-in-law was yet another. She drove him mad with her long, American legs, her endless stride, which he declared unfeminine, her booming laugh—too loud—her ghastly accent in French, which, to him, was like fingernails on a black-board. He hated her pranks, detested her sense of humor, and cringed almost visibly whenever she arrived, bringing water pistols in the form of lipsticks for the girls, dime store toys they adored, or at the other extreme, boxes and boxes and boxes of clothes from New York, including the matching navy blue coats with little mink muffs, which he told Alexandra were extremely vulgar. He detested everything she brought and everything she said, and was grateful Alexandra was nothing like her. He could never imagine why the old count had married a woman like her. And he thanked God every day that Alexandra was so much more restrained than her mother. Alexandra was intelligent and kind and discreet, and still very shy, and obedient, which was one of the qualities he liked most about her.

He looked down at her as she sat at her desk, and smiled at her in a quiet, distant way. He was not a man to show his emotions, but although he expected a great deal from her, and showed no romance, he nonetheless had deep feelings for her. He knew that without her his life would not be the same, not only financially but in subtler ways that were even more important. She ran a beautiful home for him, she had elegance and style, and her impeccable breeding showed in countless ways. Alexandra de Borne de Morigny was every inch a lady.