A Rather Lovely Inheritance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Three

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Four

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Five

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Six

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Seven

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part Eight

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Part Nine

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Part Ten

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Part Eleven

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Part Twelve

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Acknowledgements

  A Rather Lovely Inheritance

  About the Author

  New American Library

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, January 2007

  Copyright © C. A. Belmond, 2007

  Readers Guide copyright © C.A. Belmond, 2007

  All rights reserved

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Belmond, C. A.

  A rather lovely inheritance / C. A. Belmond. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09791-5

  1. Americans—Europe—Fiction. 2. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.E46R37 2007

  813’.6—dc22 2006016657

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  For Ray

  Part One

  Chapter One

  THE CASTLE IS DARK, AND THE WIND BLOWING AGAINST ITS STONY ramparts seems to evoke evil echoes of all the intrigue, murder, incest, piracy, scheming and passions of the past. There is a dank dungeon in the bottom of this castle where unspeakable torture and misery were the fate of anyone who got on the bad side of kings. Below us, the sea is crashing against the rocks, tempting anyone desperate enough to hurl herself into its cool, caressing oblivion. And in fact, there is a woman poised high on the rampart, decked in elegant crimson brocade and gold-encrusted jewels that catch the envious gleam of the sun. Her long golden hair is streaming in waves that whip around her shoulders as she gazes down at the sea with such a dramatic, defiant look that perhaps she truly is contemplating choosing death over whatever foul destiny the men in her life have decreed for her . . .

  “Fuckit!” the actress cried out, her brow furrowed into a furious scowl. “There’s sand and crap blowing in my eyes, I’m drenched in sweat under all this stinky upholstery I’m wearing, and now there’s no more sun so I’m freaking freezing in this wind.Will you get the lousy shot before I go goddamned blind and die of pneumonia up here?”

  “Cut,” the director, Bruce, said disconsolately. “Bitch from hell,” he added to no one in particular. And then somebody’s mobile phone rang. Bruce turned and glared at his crew.

  “Whose phone is that?” he demanded. “Tell whoever it is to kiss my ass!”

  We had all chucked our phones into a pile in the soundman’s van and turned them all off, as we always do. Or so I thought.

  The soundman’s assistant pawed through the phones, selected the offending one, and answered it. “It’s Penny Nichols’ phone!” he announced. Everyone turned around and stared at me as he added, “It’s your mother calling.”

  “Better not tell her to kiss Bruce’s ass, then,” said my boss, Erik, our set designer.

  “She’s says it’s important, and terribly urgent, but not life-threatening,” the assistant called out. The whole cast and crew waited.

  “Ask her if I can call her back in ten,” I said, mortified. The guy spoke into the phone, then gave me a thumbs-up.

  It’s just like my mother to chat with strangers like that. And it probably didn’t faze her in the least to be informed that our little rag-tag production company was in the middle of a shoot. I am a freelance historical researcher and set-design consultant for Pentathlon Productions, the cable TV company that has cornered the market on historical sagas and sudsy “bio-pics,” usually filmed in New York State even though our movies supposedly take place in the most glamorous capitals of the world. Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, and Queen Elizabeth all sailed up the Hudson River to view their kingdoms, and what they di
dn’t find on the banks of New York was provided in B-roll stock film footage. We never, ever get sent somewhere beautiful on location—except this time, because the new production assistant is a society girl whose overseas connections actually got Pentathlon its first co-production deal with additional European financing to make Josephine, Queen of the Romantics—otherwise known by its old working title, “Napoleon’s Wife.”

  For once we were really shooting in Europe, in an authentic castle on the gorgeous Riviera coastline near Cannes, where Napoleon landed on the beach to make his comeback.There’s only one problem, from my humble historical perspective. I couldn’t find any evidence that Josephine actually came to this castle and hung out on the walkway, scanning the horizon for signs of her emperor-husband’s boat. But nobody cares because it looks so great.

  Josephine Bonaparte was being played by Louisa Santo, a pop singer who goes by the stage name of Larima. A beautiful girl from Spanish Harlem, she did a stint at modelling before the music industry got hold of her and spun her into one of its golden canaries. Her music is tinny but mainstream, the kind you hear in department-store fitting rooms and hair salons, with repetitive tunes and fake-defiant lyrics about bad boyfriends. However, she surprised everyone by being able to act well enough for television, which she instinctively knew requires a sphinx-like stillness of the face; and she looks dignified and regal in a gown, instead of bridesmaidenly. In short, the camera loves her. Unfortunately for Larima, she signed on to do this production for a modest fee, just before her first big record hit, so she’s stuck with us and has made it very clear that she wishes we would all sink into the sea.

  From my perch on a rampart below, I could see how bloodshot the director’s eyes were. Bruce is a bit of a Napoleon himself: balding, stocky, tyrannical, with a short-man complex. He truly loves his work and has no further ambition to be anything but a regularly employed movie-of-the-month hack, as he cheerfully calls himself.

  “At least we don’t have horns honking,” the assistant director told him consolingly.

  “Horns? Of course we don’t hear horns.We can’t hear the dialogue, either.The minute she opens her mouth the wind snatches every word she says,” Bruce snapped.

  Sound has been a terrible problem every step of the way on this shoot. No matter where we’re scheduled to film, there always seem to be hopeless traffic snarls barking at us. Even way up in rented villas or in obscure village churches we could hear the roar of trucks, the shouting of workmen, the shriek of sirens. Already today, high up on the ramparts of this castle by the sea where car traffic is not allowed, we had to halt filming when a wealthy-beyond-reason retired basketball star and his pals went zooming by on speedboats and power skis, whooping and shouting and spraying each other with expensive champagne that they shook up and uncorked. Machinery is the bane of our existence as we struggle to re-create romantic history.

  But at least this time we’re really here on the glorious Riviera, we keep telling each other. We have authentic ruins for backdrop, genuine castles to shoot in, better antiques to borrow. At least we’re not parked in the same old vans, eating out of the same old plastic foam boxes, shooting under the same old tree—whether it’s the story of Catherine the Great, Nefertiti, or Madame du Barry—on the banks of the Hudson River in New York.

  For the company’s real specialty is to take any woman of history, no matter what century, rank, or nationality, and run her life story through the formula of plucky-heroine-with-many-lovers, jewels, dresses, furniture, and untold power. The blueprint is simple. The Heroine of History is born either high or low, but in any case she’s flung into an early, disastrous marriage, love affair, or rape with the master of the house, who’s enough to put any girl off sex for life; and she’s often cast out into the street. Nonetheless, being plucky, she steers her own destiny with remarkable ease, collecting various lovers, especially the One True Love whom she usually loses in the end. She compensates for her heartache by achieving business or political World Domination, becoming as scheming and ruthless as everybody around her. Still, you admire her, because she has nice hair and good wardrobe. Were you in her place, you’d do the same. The Heroine of History is just like you and me, only with money, palaces and servants.

  I don’t really mind the sudsing up of history, except for the one big lie: that the past was no different from the present. In our movies, the Heroine of History acts just like a modern, twenty-first-century gal, flaunting ancient taboos without ever fearing being stoned to death or burned at the stake. Our scripts contain the modern lingo of therapy, such as “our relationship isn’t going anywhere” and “you know how bad she is at parenting” and “you really are distancing yourself from your family.”At the same time, some favorite quasi-anachronistic words are liberally sprinkled about for atmosphere, especially “myriad” and “forsooth” and “betoken.”The characters say “hear me now” and “mark this” a lot.

  Of course, we at Pentathlon Productions know that aside from providing the quaint details of costume, sets and furniture, it’s our duty to ignore the facts of history whenever they get in the way of modern fantasia.Which is practically all the time. Bruce just keeps admonishing us to Share the fantasy.

  Bruce had now talked Larima into sharing the fantasy by taking one more shot at the dialogue. We all fell silent, holding our breath, and this time, miraculously, the wind died down, the speedboats didn’t swing by us, and Larima delivered a genuine sob with the dialogue that worked beautifully.

  “That’s it,” Bruce said cheerfully.“Lunch.” But somehow it felt like midnight, since we’d been shooting since dawn because of the tight restrictions for the use of the castle.

  Erik, the man who keeps hiring me for these jobs and insisting that I accompany him on the set even though nobody’s really sure what I do, turned to me at this point and said teasingly,“Penny Nichols! You’d better go call your mama now.”

  There is just so much dignity you can have with a name like mine. Nobody calls me Penelope, because sooner or later they realize how hilarious it is to call me Penny Nichols. I went off shamefacedly and climbed into the sound van, ducking around the crew, who were already dragging cables and microphones to pack in it. I found my phone and sat on some cool stone steps where I’d have privacy. I wondered whether my parents had returned to Connecticut from their winter migration in Florida. I decided to try them in Connecticut first. At the time I had no idea what I was getting into, because, if you knew my parents, you’d understand why I wasn’t the type of girl to expect any kind of “start in life” as my English relatives call it. And this is how my mother put it to me on that “fateful” day:

  “Hallo Penny, is that you, dear?” she asked.“You sound so far away. I am so sorry to disturb you at work, but I’m afraid I must ask you an awfully big favor,” she said briskly. She’s lived in America since she was eighteen, but she’s never lost her English accent, nor that vague aplomb with which she delivers the banal and the most devastating of news alike.

  “Because the doctor said your father and I are both too sick to travel,” she continued. “Can you hear me, darling?” she added as the line began to crackle with static.

  “Yes. Did you say sick? Both of you? With what?” I shouted so she could hear me.

  “Do calm down, darling. It’s just a wretched flu. We both had a temperature of one hundred two the day before yesterday, but it’s down now and I honestly believe that we’re over the worst of it. Normally I wouldn’t dream of bothering you about it—you will over-react sometimes,” she said in a familiar reproving tone, which indicates that my reaction is too emotional for the daughter of an Englishwoman.

  I sighed. It is practically impossible to have a conversation with my mother without rapidly plunging into Alice-in-Wonderland territory. At some point in your life (right about when you turn thirty, as I did last year) you realize that your parents have begun the slow slide toward senility and you mustn’t encourage them to lapse any sooner than necessary.


  “You said you needed a favor, right?” I called out helpfully, just as the line cleared.

  “Yes, it’s got to do with the inheritance, you see, and they all said I simply had to reach you tonight about the will,” she said.

  “Are you and Dad writing a will?” I asked.

  “Not our will. Don’t be silly. It’s not us who are dead!” she said, insulted and slightly exasperated.We will never grow old, is what she means.

  “Well, then, who died?” I fairly shouted.

  “Your Great-Aunt Penelope,” my mother said.

  “Oh,” I said with a pang of regret. I’d met her only once, but she’d been kind to me.

  My mother said, “You were named for Aunt Penelope, you know. She liked that.”

  I still can’t get used to my name. There’s no good reason for my crazy parents to have named me Penny Nichols. All right, the last name comes from my father’s family. His dad was an American GI who got stationed in Paris and married a pretty French girl, my Grandmother Aimeé. I never met either of them; my paternal grandfather died rather young of a heart attack, leaving my dad, Georges, a teenager with a wistful and abiding affection for all things American. He managed to pick up a degree in American literature while working as a chef and taking care of his mother. She died when he was twenty, so he came to New York, where he cooked in fine restaurants. There he met my mother, Nancy Laidley. She’d left what she called her “stodgy relations” in England for art school and a career as a freelance children’s-book illustrator. They fell smack-dab in love as soon as they “clapped eyes on each other.”

  But really, there’s no excuse for my first name, not even my mother’s airy explanation that they wanted to get some of her own family into my name. My English grandmother was called Beryl, and my mother defensively claims that she knew I would not be happy with that.