Mistral's Daughter (79 page)

"He
came to consult me three years ago, Madame,"
Maître
Banette
continued.
 
"There was the question
of the Law of the Third of January 1972..."

"What
law?
 
1972?
 
I don't remember anything about a law then
that affected property.
 
My own lawyer in
Paris would have informed me."

"Ah,
no, Madame.
 
It has nothing to do with
property as such."
 
Maître
Banette bristled.
 
"In 1972 the
Parliament of France made it possible for the first time to legally recognize
the children of adulterous unions.
 
Monsieur Mistral made out an act of recognition of Mademoiselle Fauve
Lunel."

Nadine
sat speechless.
 
Maître
Banette
continued.
 
"Then there is his will,
a very strange document.
 
I found him a
most difficult person to advise, Madame.
 
At first he wanted to leave his entire estate to Mademoiselle Fauve
Lunel.
 
I explained to him that it was
impossible under the laws of France.
 
The
most that he could do was to divide the estate between his two
children..."

"Divide!"

"Madame,
rest assured, it was not possible to divide in half, no, Article 760 of the law
of
Les Successions
makes that plain.
 
Mademoiselle Fauve Lunel is only entitled to one-half of what she would
inherit if she had been legitimate, that is to say twenty-five percent of the
estate, rather than fifty percent.
 
You,
Madame, retain seventy-five percent of what remains after taxes."
 
He paused and waited for Nadine to say
something but when she did not, he continued, warming to his task.
 
"The will, Madame, is written in a way
of which I do not approve.
 
I informed
Monsieur Mistral of my opinion but I regret to say that he did not choose to
take my advice."

"Fauve,"
Nadine said in a venomous voice.
 
"Always Fauve."

"Precisely,
Madame.
 
There seems to have been
a...
 
a leaning toward this particular
child."

"What
did he say?" Nadine demanded.
 
"Here, give me those papers."

"Madame!"
He held the papers protectively close to his portly chest.
 
"It is only because Mademoiselle Fauve
Lunel is not in Félice
—
I made inquiries
—
that I came to you
without waiting for her presence.
 
She
will have to be notified, sent for, but meanwhile I thought it proper to inform
you of the contents of the will since I have no way to know where to find
her."

"Read
the thing, damn it," Nadine spat out.

"Madame,
that is precisely what I intend to do," he said reprovingly, clearing his
throat.

"'I, Julien Mistral, wish to leave all my work to
my most dearly loved and cherished daughter, Fauve Lunel.
 
However, since the law prevents me from doing
this, I wish her to have the series,
La Rouquinne
, that I bought back
from my wife, Katherine Browning Mistral, the deed of sale to which is attached
to this document.
 
I wish my daughter
Fauve to have all the paintings I made of her and of her mother, Théodora
Lunel, who was the only woman I ever loved.
 
In particular, I leave to Fauve the
Cavaillon
series, which she
inspired me to paint. Because of Fauve, I learned at last, but to my eternal
regret, too late, the most important lessons of my life.
 
I hope that one day she will understand that
I listened to her and changed.
 
If my
beloved daughter Fauve wishes, I would like her to have the domain of
La
Tourrello
and all the land that belongs to it.
 
If she does not want to accept the domain, I
direct that it be sold and the proceeds added to my estate.'"

"'Under no circumstances do I wish
La
Tourrello
and the studio in which I have worked to become the property of
Madame Nadine Dalmas.
 
To my certain
knowledge she has never appreciated or understood either the beauty of any land
or the nature of any art.
 
The rest of my
estate, up to an appraised value of twenty-five percent, I also leave to my
daughter Fauve.
 
I would be honored if
she would call herself Fauve Mistral but I will understand if she does not
choose to do so.'"

"'Whatever is left must, according to law, go to
Madame Nadine Dalmas who will, I feel assured, sell it as quickly as she can to
buy herself a continuation of the shallow, unworthy, valueless, and utterly
vain life she has always chosen to lead.'"

"That's
all there is, Madame."

"That
bastard!
 
That slut, filth, rotten
bitch!
 
No!
 
Never!
 
She'll not have a thing, not one franc's worth, not while I live! He
must have been totally insane!
 
I'll
contest the will, it won't go through!"
 
Nadine's face, a Japanese mask of evil, spewed forth a voice that made
the notary rise abruptly and back away, disgust frank on his face.
 
He made an effort to pull his dignity around
him.

"I
must tell you, Madame," he managed to quaver, "there can be no
question of insanity.
 
If I had doubted
Monsieur Mistral's sanity I would never have drawn this will.
 
It is perfectly valid."

"Get
out!
 
What the hell do you know?
 
I'll call my lawyer in Paris.
 
You pompous little ass, you provincial,
stupid fool
—
of course this crazy will can be contested.
 
Out!"
 
Nadine advanced on the notary so viciously that the man picked up his
hat and fled the room without another word, taking the will with him.

No
question but it was the best story they'd had in a long time, newspapermen
agreed as they learned the details.
 
"
Inconduite notoire de la mère
," Code Civile, Act 339
–
 
they hadn't heard of that one in a long
time.
 
"Notorious misconduct"
on the part of Teddy Lunel, still the greatest cover girl who'd ever lived
—
not easy grounds to prove, the experts among them said, but without doubt the only
way to attack that extraordinary will Julien Mistral had made, the text of
which had been sought out in the files in Aix as soon as the news of the suit
broke, a text that had given them one hell of a grand story too.
 
All in all quite a windfall for an item that
they had thought had ended in a graveyard high on the north side of the
Lubéron.
 
It should run for weeks, said
one junior reporter in excitement.
 
Months, you young ignoramus, months, corrected his senior, rubbing his
hands together in pleasure.

"It
doesn't matter if Nadine Dalmas can't prove anything," Darcy said.
 
"She'll still have her revenge, she'll
still drag Teddy's name through the mud."

"She's
free to dig up anything about my mother that she can find, even if it doesn't
apply, isn't she?"
 
Fauve asked
violently.
 

"I'm
afraid so.
 
That's got to be just what
she intends to do.
 
Why else would she
have taken a step that made the words of the will public?
 
If she hadn't sued to break the will no one
would ever have known what contempt Mistral had for her."

Fauve
was prowling about Maggy's sitting room, her hands balled into fists.
 
Every muscle in her body was so tightly
clenched that she was bent, stoop-shouldered, as she shuttled back and forth,
unable to stop and sit still for even a minute.
 
She was caught up in the grip of a rage such as she had never known
could exist.
 
It was like a rogue wave
that had suddenly appeared out of the calm sea, towering over a small boat,
lifting it fifty feet into the air.
 
Nothing she had experienced in all of her life now seemed to matter compared
to Nadine's attack on her mother's memory.
 
She would kill Nadine right here, right now, if it were possible, Fauve
realized, and felt no shock.

"I'm
going to Avignon
—
tomorrow.
 
I'm
going to prevent this from happening.
 
My
mother's not going to be called a whore!
 
I don't give a damn about the pictures but Nadine cannot do this
—
I will not allow it."

"Fauve..."
said Maggy, and stopped.
 
She began
again.
 
"All of this happened before
you were born..."

"I'm
going to pack," Fauve said, ignoring her.

"Isn't
there anybody you can call?" Maggy pleaded.
 
"Somebody who could help from all those
summers you spent in France?
 
Can't you
think of a single person?"

"Yes,"
said Fauve slowly, stopping on her way to the door, "yes, there is
somebody.
 
How could I have
forgotten?"

Eric
Avigdor was waiting at the airport in Marseilles.
 
He was constrained as he expressed his
sympathy to Fauve, remembering the manner in which they had parted six months
before.

"Papa
was delighted that you called him," he said as they sped up toward Avignon
on the Autoroute du Sud.

"He
must have been astonished
—
I just asked overseas information for his
number and we were connected within minutes.
 
I'm afraid it was almost midnight.
 
I hadn't thought about the time difference."

"He
never goes to bed early."

"That's
what he said but I thought he was only being polite."

"Papa?
 
He gave up being polite when he
retired."

"Has
he found a lawyer for me?" Fauve asked anxiously.

"The
best man in Avignon.
 
He's waiting for
you at my parents' house.
 
His name is
Maître
Jean Perrin.
 
He fought with Papa in the
Resistance."

"It's
so kind of your father."

"He's
very fond of you." Eric smiled at her for the first time, and Fauve smiled
a little.
 
Just thinking of Adrien
Avigdor made her feel better.

They
lapsed into silence again but it was less formal than the stiff words they had
exchanged during the wait for Fauve's suitcase.
 
She had flown down to Marseilles directly after getting off the plane in
Paris and she was exhausted and crumpled, but the afternoon light of Provence
in early October, the sight of the eternally renewed olive trees and the
sentinel, pointed cypresses worked their familiar miracle on her and a sheer
animal pleasure in being back quickened in her blood.

For
the first time since she was sixteen Fauve permitted herself to remember how
much she loved this countryside.
 
They
turned off the Autoroute where it crossed over the main east-west road, and
instead of going east, which would have brought them to Félice, they turned
west and within a half-hour they arrived at the Avigdors' house on the rue de
la Montée St. André in Villeneuve-les-Avignon.

Fauve
was immediately disappointed and concerned at the sight of the lawyer.
 
She had expected Jean Perrin to be the age of
Adrien Avigdor but how could this man be more than thirty-eight or nine?

He
was slender, short, almost boyish in his looks.
 
However, at second glance, he had gray eyes that made her stand up very
straight, for Jean Perrin was one of the breed of men who take in everything
with one rapid, comprehensive, commanding glance.

Adrien
Avigdor, unchanged, was wearing a sweater and an open-necked shirt but
Maître
Perrin was dressed in a double-breasted suit with the rosette of the
Legion of Honor in his buttonhole.
 
His
elegant, citified attire gave him, Fauve thought uneasily, something of the
look of an urchin dressed in his best.
 
Beth Avigdor hugged Fauve as warmly as if she were a favorite niece.

"You
must be so tired, my poor Fauve.
 
The
guest room is waiting for you.
 
Would
you like to lie down for an hour before we dine?"

"No,
thank you, Madame Avigdor.
 
I'd prefer to
talk to
Maître
Perrin right away."

Fauve
and the lawyer went to sit on the wide balcony of the house, high above the
city, with the Rhône in the near distance and the silhouettes of the palaces of
Avignon beyond, steeples and towers like an immense sailing ship riding the
turbulent river.