Collection Completed, Page 2

want them to feel that they were lesser humans than us.” She had a great sense of humility for someone of her stature.

  Sometimes, she would cry when she talked about her mother, who had died when Madam was fourteen. Looking around the house, there was no clue that she ever existed. After she passed away, her father had put away all her mother’s pictures, refusing to tell Madam where he had hidden them. How very cruel, I thought to myself, especially to a child, how cruel indeed. Madam spoke of her mother often, she told us that she had long red hair and emerald green eyes, just like hers. And how they loved to go horseback riding together every weekend. “Sometimes I feel so alone,” she would say.

  Not long after New Year’s day 1973, she met Richard Van Zant, an art dealer nearly twenty years her senior, at an equestrian event. They were married four months later. I never particularly cared for Van Zant, he was, to say the least, a domineering personality. Life was lived his way, or it was not lived at all. He voiced his opinions on everything from Madam’s choice of hair and make-up, to how to run the winery business. He was very demanding and tempered, usually to the point of making her cry. Often times, it seemed more like a father/daughter relationship rather than husband and wife. It occurred to me, that just as it was with her father, she was Van Zant’s girl, he took care of her and told her what to do, and she liked that. She needed it. Some personalities need that kind of attention, they begin to crave it the second the umbilical cord is severed.

  Van Zant was fluent in French, and demanded that we call him Monsieur Van Zant, and if we failed to do so, he would venomously correct us and demand an apology. And God forbid if Madam were to commit the mortal sin of wearing too much lipstick, or a dress cut too low in the front, he would chastise her and shout until she was so nervous and upset that she couldn’t speak or eat. But she loved him, don’t question me as to why, but she did. I, myself, never married. I could never quite understand the physics of love and romance, a good book and the occasional cigar and brandy have always been enough gratification for me. Just not in my blood, I suppose.

  Van Zant lavished Madam with gifts, jewels, clothes, artwork… even regular trips to Europe. And for her twenty-third birthday, he surprised her with two beautiful horses, a speckled snow white colt, she named Romeo, and a black stallion, she called Midnight. One day, while Van Zant was out riding Midnight alone, the horse stumbled and tripped over an old piece of broken fencing, Van Zant was thrown off and his neck was broken. He died instantly. Madam was grief stricken. She cried and screamed for days. Though many claimed to be her friends, those same people who always came to the parties and stayed until the last drop of champagne and gossip had been digested, never showed. Not even her brothers came. Only one person came to console her in her time of need, when she had locked herself in her bedroom and refused to come out or even eat, her uncle, Dr. Peter Harrington. He was a stout and friendly, somewhat quiet man, with a receded hairline and wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Abigail,” Dr. Harrington gently rapped on the door. “Abigail, sweetheart, please open the door.” I could hear her muffled cries coming through the wall as I stood back and watched as Dr. Harrington patiently tried to coax her out. I watched party out of curiosity too, you see, we were never allowed in Madam’s bedroom. That was really the only rule she ever set down. Even the maids were not allowed to go in, not even to clean or collect laundry. The only glimpse I ever saw was once when she was coming out late one night, and I saw what I think was a painting of Alexander Cabanel’s “Birth of Venus” above a huge white canopy bed.

  “Come on, darling, if you come out, we can talk.” He spoke to her as if she were a child, and in a sense, she was. Granted, not many know the pain and loss of becoming a widow at twenty-three. After twenty minutes or so, it became apparent that she wasn’t going to come out. Dr. Harrington pulled out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat off his forehead. He stared at the door and shook his head in despair, when suddenly the knob turned and the door opened. There Madam stood, in a blue kimono-styled bathrobe and slippers, hair mussed, and smeared puddles of mascara on her checks. She quickly shut the door behind her. She no longer looked like the little girl playing dress up I had met three years earlier. He outstretched his arms and Madam gratefully collapsed into them. She buried her face into his chest and began to cry loudly again, to the point of almost screaming.

  “It’s alright, everything will be fine,” he said, caressing her hair. Dr. Harrington slowly edged her inside and closed the door. Catherine, Marta and I tip-toed with soft footsteps down the hallway and up the stairs as Madam and her uncle talked into the night. We communicated with one another only through quick glances of the eye. The sounds that spilled from her bedroom walls that night were horrible, she went from sobbing to shouting, to telling to screaming, to even smashing something against the wall and breaking it into a million shattered pieces ( I still to this say don’t know what, as I said before, we were never allowed in) And then at about eleven o’clock, it became as silent as a tomb. Soon after, I saw Dr. Harrington coming down the stairs, clutching his little black bag and straightening his tie. I told him that since it was so late, if he wished he could stay in one of the guest rooms. “No, thank you,” he said, studying his pocket watch. He said that he had given Madam a sedative to help her sleep, and that he would be back in the morning to help her make the proper funeral arrangements.

  As the morning sun caressed the vines and flowers outside, and poured through the many windows of the house, Madam and Dr. Harrington sat inside the dining hall, making plans for Richard Van Zant’s funeral. “The flowers can be ready by Thursday, and I’ll call the catering service this afternoon.” He sounded like he was planning a party. Damn it, I thought, why don’t you just pop open the bloody champagne and party hats? With my ear pressed to the wall, the guests at The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette comically peered down on me. While the doctor rambled on, Madam just stared off into space. There was no more life left in her eyes, no more rosy tinges in her cheeks.

  “And have you given any thought as to who will give the eulogy?” Madam turned away and looked out the window. “I can’t,” she said, her eyes moving down to her wedding ring. “I can’t put him in the ground.” “Abigail, please.” She threw her pearls over one shoulder and walked over to the window. Arms crossed, she looked out at the rows and rows of dollar-soaked vines, the rusted, creaky gates, and the tangled maze of trees. Suddenly, a tiny smile appeared across her face. “I could put a mausoleum right here on the grounds.” My heart jumped up inside my throat. Christ, when I watched the paramedics carry off Van Zant’s dead, white-sheathed body, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would see it come back! Dr. Harrington stared at her like she was ready to be committed to an insane asylum. He tried to explain to her that maybe it wasn’t the best idea, that it might make grieving harder. But she would hear none of it. Her mind was set. She had found a way to keep her beloved Richard near, forever.

  After the funeral, which was held at a nearby cathedral, and attended by hundreds, a crew of about thirty men were immediately put to work to build, no doubt, the most lavish mausoleum money could buy. At about five o’clock, just as the sun was setting, I was preparing Madam’s dinner tray, Catherine was cleaning the floors, and Marta was wiping the windows. We all turned around as we heard footsteps thumping down the staircase. “He’s here!” Madam exclaimed, her eyes lit up like a child on Christmas morning. The white hearse slowly crept through the tall black gates. We all moved closer to the window for a better look.

  Three men in black suits filed out. A tall man with greasy blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, walked around to the back of the hearse and unlatched the door. And out into their hands slid a shiny silver coffin. I suddenly felt a firm hand on my shoulder. “He’s home now, Malachi.” Marta crossed herself and started reciting “Hail Mary’s,” while Catherine stood speechless and frozen as the three men carried the casket up the steps and through the front door. “You can set him down in the dining hal
l,” Madam told them. It sent chills up my spine to hear her say “Set HIM down in the dining hall,” instead of “It” down in the dining hall. My hands shivering, we all worked very fast to clear a space for him. Marta and Catherine, between glances of the coffin and me, were so nervous they kept knocking over chairs right and left.

  They sat the coffin down on the cold marble floor. The blonde-headed man walked over to Madam and took her hand. “We’re so sorry for your loss,” he said, no doubt, a well-rehearsed line. He kept patting her hand, while the other two men carried in a black, box-shaped platform about five feet tall, the kind they use to prop caskets up in funeral homes. The men placed the coffin onto the platform and wiped their sweaty brows. I noticed on the lid there was a gold plate engraved: Richard H. Van Zant, 1922-1974. “Thank you so much,” Madam said, as the three odd-looking men walked back down the steps and drove away in the white hearse with dark windows. The sounds of trees being cut down and men hammering echoed from behind the house, and with a shiver I recalled staring out