“Darling—I’ll do the introductions, leave it to me.” Isobel sailed forward with a dazzling smile. “Harriet, this is Binky. Binky, this is Anne, and Charlotte, and Elizabeth—goodness, this is complicated, I’m sure you all know one another already. Chog, how simply lovely to see you. It’s been too long…”
She held out her hand to Chog, alias Lord Vvyan Knollys, but Chog to his friends since preparatory school. Her smile grew even more radiant, and Edouard suppressed a groan. Chog was one of Isobel’s pet hates; she could discourse on his failings—and often did—for hours.
Across the room, Jean-Paul, his face set, was bowing over the hand of the tall thin girl, Lady Anne Kneale; both he and Edouard had met her before, for she was one of Isobel’s oldest friends. Jean-Paul disliked her, if that were possible, almost as much as Isobel disliked Chog. He was now making a steely and determined effort not to let that dislike show. Edouard turned away, suppressing a smile. The atmosphere, he felt, did not augur well for the evening.
By the time they all reached the theater in a fleet of cars and taxis, Isobel’s face had set in that fixed and glittering smile, and Edouard knew it meant trouble. He suspected Jean-Paul did, too, for he was more than usually assertive. They arrived late, and the show had already started. Jean-Paul interpreted this as an especial rudeness on the part of the management.
“I’ve seen this show four times,” he announced loudly as they all gathered in the foyer. “They know me backstage. You’d think they’d have the courtesy to hold the curtain for five minutes, damn it…”
“Twenty minutes, darling.” Isobel put her arm through Edouard’s. “And I can’t see that it matters in the least. It’s the silliest show in London, isn’t it, Anne?”
“It has quite a lot of competition, but actually, you might be right…”
Anne Kneale drawled the words in a way clearly designed to provoke. She and Isobel exchanged glances. Jean-Paul flushed.
“Well, I like it. Edouard will enjoy it. Now, let’s get a move on, shall we?”
“I wonder why Jean likes it so much?” Isobel’s cheek brushed Edouard’s shoulder; the emerald eyes flashed up at him mockingly. “I can’t imagine, can you, Anne? Can you, little brother?”
During the first half of the show the men in their party were loudly responsive and the women muted. Isobel hardly bothered to look at the stage. She sat next to Edouard, and fluttered her program, and stared around the house, and all the time she rested her thigh against his. At one point there were nudgings and muffled whisperings from the men as one young actress made her first entrance, and Jean-Paul lifted his opera glasses and focused them on the stage ostentatiously. Chog laughed, and Isobel put her hand with its emerald ring on Edouard’s thigh. She turned her head.
“Do you know, Edouard, I really don’t think I can bear this,” she said in a low distinct voice.
To his own surprise Edouard took her hand in his and pressed it. He held it until the intermission came, and they all withdrew to the bar for champagne.
“Jolly little piece, what?” Chog propped himself against the bar and smiled at Edouard with the kindliness derived from considerable quantities of alcohol. “Not too demanding, you know? I like that. Nothing too serious. Serious theater makes my balls ache.”
François and Pierre started a complicated argument in French as to whether or not such a play could be performed in Paris, and, if so, whether or not it might appeal to a boulevardier audience. Isobel set down her glass of champagne untasted, and disappeared to the ladies’ room. After some hesitation her friends accompanied her. The minute the women had gone, the men relaxed.
“You saw her?” Jean-Paul turned to the man called Sandy, who was wearing the uniform of the Brigade of Guards. “The little one in the last scene—the one with the lovely eyes? She’s new. She wasn’t in it last time I came.”
“I told you. I know her. Not worth the bother.” Sandy sighed.
“How do you know?”
“Tried it. No dice. Rather a prissy girl. Gets on her high horse at the drop of a hat. Frightfully boring.”
“You’d like to bet on that?”
Jean-Paul’s face had its mulish look. Sandy shrugged.
“My dear fellow. By all means try. Maybe your Gallic charm will win the day. It has been known.”
“Awfully thin.” Chog outlined a more impressive female form with his hands. “I wouldn’t bother, old chap.”
“I like her eyes.” Jean-Paul was not to be swayed. “She has beautiful eyes. Violet eyes.”
“She’s called Violet.” Sandy yawned. “Not enormously original, is it?”
“Violet eyes make my balls ache,” said Chog in the manner of one settling the matter.
“Send your card ’round,” said the one called Binky helpfully. “Never know your luck.”
“My friend…” Jean-Paul put his arm around him. “That is exactly, but exactly, what I plan to do.”
He drew his card out of his uniform pocket and was still in the process of writing something on it when François gave a cough, and Pierre nudged him. Isobel had returned.
She stood looking at them all for a moment, her friends hovering in the background. Then she gave them her most ravishing smile.
“The most extraordinary thing has happened,” she said brightly. “Do you know, I’ve developed an allergy to this play? I really don’t think I could possibly sit through the second half. In fact, by the oddest coincidence, we all feel the same way.” She gestured to the group of young women behind her. Anne Kneale laughed, and Isobel glanced at her reprovingly.
“So, we’ve all decided to leave you, and just jump in the cars and go home. No! Don’t say a single word. This is Edouard’s birthday, and I wouldn’t have that spoiled for anything. So you just go back in and forget us altogether. Darling Edouard…” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Happy Birthday. I hope you have a lovely evening…”
She turned, disappeared through the throng at the bar, and was gone. There was a moment’s silence. The men looked at one another. Edouard looked at the floor.
“Tant pis.” Jean-Paul, unruffled, finished writing on his card. He beckoned to the barman; the card and a five-pound note exchanged hands. Jean-Paul turned around. He smiled.
“And now, now, mes amis, we start to enjoy ourselves. Yes?”
Jean-Paul was an habitué of numerous fashionable restaurants and clubs in the West End of London. Since he was who he was, and had a reputation as a big spender and lavish tipper, he was welcomed fulsomely in spite of the fact that his parties often became a little wild. The places he favored all had a clientele that was chic, rich, and slightly louche. A mixture of officers, London society, black marketeers, actresses, and chorus girls—that was the sort of companionship Jean-Paul favored. He haunted the Caprice, the Ivy, and the Café Royal, and, if the evening went on, and promised well, the notorious Four Hundred. He was an easily satisfied customer. A good table, assiduous service, plenty to drink, beautiful women within view, tinkling piano music, if possible a small dance floor: this was enough; Jean-Paul was content. He liked the Café Royal, he said, because he always had a good time there. With its elaborate mirrors and scurrying waiters, it reminded him of the Dôme or the Coupole—it reminded him of Paris.
Tonight, as his party were obsequiously ushered to their table, he was in high good humor. He had won the first part, at least, of his bet. Trooping along with him were five fellow officers, Edouard, and two women. The prettier, who had three lines in Lady Behave, must be Violet, Edouard thought, for she had violet eyes. The plainer seemed to be there to give Violet moral support. She was, she confided to Edouard, in the theatrical profession herself, but just beginning. In Lady Behave she was a walking understudy. The war had hit the theatrical profession very badly, she told him, very badly indeed. The best you could hope for, really, was a tour entertaining troops.
Jean-Paul was noisily determined that Edouard was going to have a good time. He insisted Edouard sit between the two young wome
n, Violet on his left and Irene—a name he pronounced in the French manner, very gallantly—on Edouard’s right. Jean-Paul himself sat opposite them, and the other young men arranged themselves as they pleased.
Irene giggled. “Oh, doesn’t it sound lovely the way he says it, Vi? Much more romantic. There’s a Frenchman for you.”
“How do you say it?” Edouard said gallantly, his spirits sinking.
“I. Re. Ne.” She giggled again. “Horrible, isn’t it? I never liked it myself, but there you are, you’re stuck with the name God gave you, aren’t you? Some’s lucky, some’s not. Take Violet now. I think that’s a lovely name, don’t you? Especially when you’ve got eyes to match. I said to the other girls, I said—you shouldn’t call her Vi, you really shouldn’t. It’s a crying shame. But what can you do? Vi she was, and Vi she stuck…”
Edouard turned to look at Violet curiously. She had said nothing since she had joined them at the stage door, and she was now sitting silently. One thin hand was clutching the stem of her champagne glass; the other was crumbling a bread roll. She was very pretty, he thought, though not the type Jean-Paul usually favored. She was terribly thin, with small delicate bones, wrists he could easily have circled with finger and thumb. She had a tiny heart-shaped face, softly waved brown hair. She was pretty enough, but not startlingly so, until she looked up and you saw the eyes that had attracted Jean-Paul’s notice. They were huge, thickly fringed with dark lashes, and the color of pansies; they looked slightly dreamy, and also slightly afraid. Edouard looked at the eyes, the thin wrists, the slightly shabby frock of pale mauve silk, the wilting rose she had pinned to her neckline, and he felt pity rise. She looked a born victim; he hoped desperately that Jean-Paul would leave her alone.
“I say, Miss Fortescue. Violet, isn’t it? May I call you Violet?” On her other side Chog leaned forward. “That was a frightfully good show, you know. We all thought so. Frightfully good.”
“Did you think so?” The violet eyes lifted slowly to Chog’s face. Her voice was soft, well-educated, quite different from Irene’s raucous tones.
“I’ll say. And you, too, of course. Frightfully good.” Chog’s fund of compliments exhausted, he cast around wildly for another topic of conversation. “Must be jolly good fun, being an actress. Frightfully hard. Never know how you manage it. Learning all those lines.”
“Three lines isn’t terribly taxing.”
“What? Oh, gosh. Yes. Well. Was it only three? Thought it was far more than that.”
“How kind. I must have said them especially well.”
Edouard glanced at her with renewed interest. There was not a hint of a smile; she appeared completely serious. Chog, unsure if he was being teased, hesitated, and then laughed. The champagne arrived, Irene claimed Edouard’s attention once more, and he heard no more of the fragments of conversation from his right.
François, Pierre, and Jean-Paul began a heated conversation about the progress of the war: exactly when the Americans could be expected to come in; whether the Boches would ever take Moscow; whether Rommel would take Tobruk; whether any of them would see France free again. Edouard joined in the conversation briefly, when Irene went off to dance with Binky, but no one was listening to anything he said, so after a while he gave up. He leaned back in his chair and drank champagne, although he knew he had already had more than enough, and wished he were old enough to do something useful, wished the evening would end, wished he hadn’t quarreled with Célestine. The quarrel had left him miserable all day; now the drink, and the stuffy air, the cigar smoke, the piano music, the flushed faces and loud voices, all made him long to be back with her, to lie in her arms, to be at peace in the quiet of her room.
“Is he really the Baron de Chavigny?” Suddenly the girl called Violet turned to him, her question taking him by surprise. She nodded across the table at Jean-Paul, who was predicting the Boches would be driven out of France by the end of ’42. “Your friend. Is he?”
“He’s my brother.” Edouard returned to the room with difficulty. He was aware that his own voice was slightly slurred. “And no, he’s not the Baron de Chavigny. Not yet. He will be. Our father is—at present.”
Violet’s delicate plucked brows drew together in a little frown. “Oh, I see. I just wondered. He wrote that on his card, you see. The one he sent round. And—well, I wondered if it was a joke. Men do play jokes like that sometimes, you know.”
“They do?”
“Oh, yes!” She clasped her thin hands together. “If they want to persuade you to come out—that sort of thing. I usually say no, you see. But tonight I felt a little low. Tired. And I was intrigued. So I said yes.”
“Women are always intrigued by my brother.”
He was aware the moment the words were out that it was hardly the most polite thing to say. A slight flush rose over her cheekbones, but she seemed not greatly to mind.
“Are you giving me a warning?”
She arched her brows as she said it, and widened her eyes, her manner coquettish, but slightly amateurishly so. Edouard felt impatient. He had been wrong earlier; she was just like all the other women Jean-Paul picked up and discarded—silly, he thought.
“Who knows?” He shrugged. “Do you need one?”
Her blush deepened then, so he felt boorish and instantly repentant.
“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t been in London long. I was brought up in Devon.”
Edouard knew that was a cue of some kind, that he ought to ask her about Devon or something, because she seemed quite eager he should do so. But he had never been there, knew nothing about it, and—just then—his mind felt as if it couldn’t grapple with the problem of that county at all. There was an awkward silence, at the end of which the girl called Violet nervously lifted her champagne glass.
“Oh, well,” she said. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it? Happy Birthday.”
It was the last thing she said to him. Shortly afterward, Jean-Paul showed signs of impatience, and kept looking at his watch. Pierre had become lachrymose; the fate of la belle France was too much for him. Jean-Paul ushered them all out into a pitch-black Piccadilly Circus, and announced the night was still young.
There were some dissenters. Pierre and François announced they were leaving. A brother officer had given them a bottle of Marc, and they intended to return home and drink it and continue their argument. Binky had to report for a briefing next morning, and thought he’d better call it a day. Edouard privately felt that the night was not young but hideously old, and the sooner it was terminated the better. But he could see the scowl of disappointment beginning on Jean-Paul’s face, and so he kept silent. Sandy announced that he was game; he felt like a bit of a spree. And at that, Jean-Paul revived.
Three men, one boy, and two women piled into Chog’s Daimler, and set about the business of escorting the ladies home. This took longer than anyone had anticipated, because the ladies lived in digs in Islington, which Chog had never heard of and insisted was near Basingstoke. They drove around in the blackout for what seemed to Edouard hours, with Chog announcing at intervals that they must almost be there now, and if the M.P.’s got him this time, he was done for. Sandy had thoughtfully brought along a bottle of brandy; the women sat on the men’s laps, and everyone except Violet and Edouard sang, untunefully, but with gusto.
“You silly boys! You’re mad—you are.” Irene gave an ear-splitting screech. “We’re there! I told you so. Look, up there’s the Angel. Go right, and right again…that’s it! Anyone for a nightcap?”
“Irene—it’s late. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
The girl called Violet had scrambled out of the car first; Irene fell out after her, with many gigglings and pinchings and shrieks. “Someone pinched my bum! They did! I swear I felt a pinch, Vi, right there. Oh, you’re naughty boys, you are. I told you, Vi. I said, never trust a Frenchman…”
“Mesdames.” Jean-Paul had also extricated himself from the car. He bowed over their hands with a gallantry Edo
uard knew was designed to get rid of them quickly with a minimum of fuss. He held on to Violet’s hand appreciably longer than he did Irene’s.
“I was honored you could join us…À votre service…Au revoir…”
He escorted them to their door, saw them inside, then weaved his way back to the Daimler and heaved himself inside.
“Christ, Jean, you lay it on thick…” Sandy yawned as Chog shifted the gears with a crunch, and the car swerved around in a circle, narrowly missing a lamppost. “I told you she was a prissy piece. Why bother?”
“Why not?” Jean shrugged; he winked at Edouard. “I like her eyes. Anyway, who cares? We’ve got rid of them now. Let’s go on to the Four Hundred…”
They went on to the Four Hundred, but Jean-Paul grew restive and said he found it boring. Then they went to a place called Vic’s, where a young man wearing makeup sat at the piano and played songs. They had a brandy there, then Sandy said he couldn’t stand being in the same room with such frightful nancy-boys. They barreled out onto the sidewalk, and Edouard looked at the street, which was rising and falling in the most peculiar way, like waves. He suggested they might go home.
“Go home? Go home?” Chog appeared incensed at this suggestion. He staggered about the sidewalk and made punching motions in the air. “This is London! This is wartime! We can’t go home! Who suggested that? Go on—which one of you fellows said it? Say it again, damn it, and I’ll knock him down…”
“Nobody said it. Nobody said a thing…” Sandy made pacifying noises. He paused. “The thing is. The problem is. Where can we go? I mean—where can a fellow have a good time? That’s what we want. That’s what we deserve, eh? A proper English good time.”
Chog loomed up out of the darkness, his round face pale and incandescent with inspiration. He waved his arms like a windmill. “I know! Of course. I know! We’ll go to Pauline’s. Pauline’s is just the place.”
Jean-Paul and Sandy exchanged glances.
“Pauline’s? Can we get in, do you think, Chog?”
“Get in? Get in? Of course we can get in.” Chog moved purposefully back to the Daimler, which was parked with one wheel on the sidewalk. “You’re with me,” he said grandly. “There isn’t a place in London won’t welcome me. And my friends. My special friends.”
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