Sybil was wrapping gifts in her office late one night when Samuel Saint Martin called her from Paris. She didn’t recognize his voice at first, until he identified himself.
“I’m sorry to call you so late,” Samuel apologized. It was eleven o’clock at night in San Francisco, and eight in the morning in Paris.
“It’s fine,” she said easily. “I’m wrapping Christmas presents. My children are coming home tomorrow.”
“How old are they?”
“Almost the same age as your daughter. My son Andrew is twenty, my daughter, Caroline, is nineteen, and my son Charlie is nine. They’re just a little younger than yours.” But he was thirty-one years older than Sybil since he had married and had his daughter so much later. “Andrew is at the University of Edinburgh and Caroline goes to UCLA,” she filled him in. “Have you read the book yet?” She hadn’t expected to hear from him for a month or two, till after he retired, and it had only been a few weeks now.
“I have, and so has my daughter. That’s why I’m calling you. She’s obsessed with it, with the house and the family. And I have to admit, I find them quite haunting too, if you’ll forgive the expression. We have all kinds of old legends about ghosts in my family’s chateau in Dordogne, and Laure is fascinated by them. She’s convinced there must be some in your mansion too.” He laughed as he said it, and Sybil grinned. He had no idea what he was getting into with the Butterfields. But that was precisely why she had contacted him. And he, or at least his daughter, sounded hooked, or intrigued at the very least.
“She’s spending Christmas with her mother in Normandy. But we have quite a long Christmas break at the university. She wants me to come over with her to visit you, sometime during the holiday. Perhaps around New Year’s. Would that be terribly inconvenient for you?” he said apologetically. “We would stay in a hotel of course, but it sounds like you have family plans.”
“It wouldn’t be inconvenient at all,” Sybil said, thinking about it and trying to decide just how far she wanted to go. And then she decided to go further. She owed it to Gwyneth and her family, to all of them, to make the meeting possible, and comfortable for them. She was the liaison between their two dimensions, and it was very important to her to do this right. “You can stay with us. You don’t need to stay at a hotel,” she said bravely, hoping that he and his daughter were up to it. “We have plenty of guest rooms, as you can imagine.”
“Your husband and children won’t mind? We’re strangers, after all.” He sounded cautious and polite.
“No, you’re not. You have more right to be here than we do. Ancestrally speaking, you’re Butterfields. We’d love to have you.” And so would all the others, once they met them. She knew Gwyneth would be happy.
“You’re very kind.” It was one thing he’d always liked about Americans. They were always so hospitable, even to strangers, if they had some common connection. But in his mind, this was a thin one, and Sybil had been charming to him since the beginning. And he had found the book riveting, as he read about all his distant and not-so-distant relations and how their lives had turned out and the challenges they’d faced at interesting times in history, the Great War, the Spanish flu epidemic right afterward, the Crash of ’29, the Great Depression that had swept away their fortune. Samuel knew the more recent history, about when his grandmother had bought the house back, and when his mother had sold it again, but he had known none of it from before that, until he read the book.
And Laure, his daughter, was even more excited about it than he was. Although he had insisted to her that Sybil had said there were no ghosts in the house, Laure was sure there had to be, with such an intriguing family once living there. She loved the idea of being related to them. And, despite his initial reluctance, so did he. He wanted to meet Sybil, and thought her a very interesting person too, for being so dedicated to them, simply because she and her husband had bought their house. He had looked Sybil up on the Internet, and was very impressed by her professional credentials as a writer and curator. And she had obviously researched the Butterfields carefully, since she knew so much about them. He had been moved by that too when they last spoke.
“Do you have the exact dates that would work for you?” Sybil asked him, wanting to pin him down.
“Perhaps we could arrive around the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth? We won’t stay for more than a few days.” It was six or seven days away, but it worked well for her too. She didn’t think Blake would mind, or her children. They would have Christmas en famille, with the Butterfields, and then Quinne and Max were coming anyway. The more the merrier, as far as Sybil was concerned, and she could hardly wait to tell Gwyneth that her great-grandson and great-great-granddaughter were coming. She just hoped the others would be willing to welcome them too.
“That’s perfect. Let me know your flight, and we’ll pick you up at the airport,” she said warmly.
“There’s no need to do that. I’ll rent a car. We’ll need one anyway, so we can see the city, and we don’t want to be a burden on you. I’ll let you know what time we’ll arrive at the house, and on which day.”
“I look forward to meeting you and Laure,” Sybil said, excited about it. “Have a lovely Christmas in the meantime.”
“You too, and your family. And thank you again for allowing us to make this pilgrimage,” he said, laughing. It was Sybil who had started it, and she was glad she had. Calling him had been so much the right thing to do. It would complete everything to have the last of the Butterfields come to meet their family. And maybe he would write the next book about them.
Sybil was excited about their visit, and she knew Gwyneth would be too. It hadn’t been a crazy idea after all. It had been inspired. She couldn’t help wondering what had impelled her to do it. Maybe even Bettina herself. But whatever the reason, her efforts had been successful so far. She sat in her office smiling after they hung up. Their visit was the best Christmas gift of all. And after that, she wanted him to write the book.
Chapter 18
When Sybil told Blake that Samuel Saint Martin and his daughter were coming to visit, he was dubious at first, and wanted to know how it had happened. The coincidence was too great, and the connection too slim. He questioned her intensely, and she admitted to having contacted him, and he expressed strong disapproval.