Gardenia said nothing. She knew that her aunt was suffering.
She helped her to dress, putting on one of her elegant and expensive Worth gowns and knowing when they were ready that they looked like millionairesses rather than two poverty-stricken women with only a few diamonds between them and starvation.
“Bring my diamond brooch,” the Duchesse said. “We will see what one of the jewellers in the main street will give us for it.” She hesitated and then added, “I think it is unwise to return to Monsieur Jacques, don’t you?”
“I thought of that,” Gardenia said. “The one thing we must not do is to let the hotel or anyone else realise the true state of our affairs.”
“Even though they have known me a long time, I have a feeling that you are right,” the Duchesse agreed. “There is no sentiment in Monte Carlo when it comes to money. They have had too many debts, too many bankruptcies and too many suicides. I have heard them talking and there has never been a word of friendliness or understanding for those who have been foolish enough to chuck their money away on the tables.”
“That is what I thought, come on, Aunt Lily, perhaps we will both feel better when we have had something to eat.”
The Duchesse used her usual cosmetic, which hid the lines of unhappiness, misery and disappointment on her face and, as they reached the hall of the hotel, Gardenia was amazed how the older woman managed to pull herself together to smile at the attendants, who bade them ‘good morning’, to nod to the Manager who bowed as she passed through the swing door and down the steps into the sunshine.
“They are nothing but jackals,” she whispered to Gardenia. “If they knew the truth they would be at us, picking the very flesh from our bones.”
“I know,” Gardenia murmured unhappily.
It was difficult to feel that she was not acting in a very bad play.
She strolled with her aunt through the gardens with their bright colourful beds of flowers and trickling silvery streams. The leaves of the palm trees were rustling overhead in the faint breeze from the sea.
It was very warm and the Duchesse was panting by the time they had reached the main shopping street. They found a small café and ate a frugal meal of coffee and fresh croissants. The Duchesse looked longingly at the bottles behind the bar, but with what Gardenia realised was a tremendous effort she did not ask for a drink.
“I must have some friends here who will give us dinner,” she said. “There is no one of interest at the Hôtel de Paris, but there may be someone at the Splendide or the Alexander. I will get the Concierge to telephone, I will tell him I am trying to arrange a dinner party. He will quite understand.”
“I still think we ought to leave tomorrow,” Gardenia said.
She saw her aunt’s lips tighten and added,
“The ship does not sail until the afternoon. Shall we make a pact that, if you have not heard from the Baron by the morning, you will telegraph again telling him that we have gone to England?”
Her aunt drew on her gloves.
“I will think about it,” she replied coldly. “Suppose he came and I had just left? Suppose your friends in Paris, Lord Hartcourt and Mr. Cunningham, have reported what they know to England, what will happen then?”
Gardenia gave a little start
“I had not thought of that.”
“England and France are hand in glove against the Germans,” her aunt said sharply. “I should imagine all Diplomatic secrets are exchanged. So you do see, Gardenia, it is not such a clever idea as you think to go to England.”
“Then where can we go?” Gardenia asked despairingly.
“I think for the present it is best to remain here.”
“But, Aunt Lily, you must see that we cannot afford to stay at the Hôtel de Paris. That suite alone is costing us every day more than we would spend in a fortnight or even a month in England. We must be sensible.”
“Dear child, you are very like your mother,” the Duchesse said rather condescendingly. “She always worried herself over trifles. Something will turn up, it always does. Now come, we will go back to the hotel and get the Concierge to ring round and see who is staying here. I used to know an old man with a Villa over the Italian border. I wonder if he is still alive.”
The Duchesse called for the addition, tipped an exorbitant amount that left the waiter almost incoherent with gratitude and swept from the restaurant, leaving behind her a trail of expensive perfume.
Gardenia followed her miserably.
“What about the jeweller?” she asked.
“I tell you what we will do. You go back to the hotel and then you can slip out again and go to the jewellers on your own. I think, my dear, it would be rather indiscreet for me to take my jewels in person. I feel sure you will understand.”
Gardenia understood all too clearly, the Duchesse was evading what she felt would be an uncomfortable and unpleasant action. But there was no point in arguing and, when her aunt hailed a Hackney carriage to drive them back to the hotel, she did not even protest.
“I really could not walk any further,” the Duchesse explained, “it was most inconsiderate of you, Gardenia, to drag me up that hill so fast. My doctors always said I must be careful of my heart. Besides it is much too hot for walking.”
“The carriage has to be paid for,” Gardenia retorted in a small voice.
“They will do that at the hotel,” her aunt replied. “It will go on the bill.”
They drove in silence. Gardenia wished she could enjoy the sunlight and flowers and the glimpse of the sea sparkling an azure blue beneath the great rock where stood the Palace of the Prince of Monaco, but it was difficult to think of anything except that they themselves were plunging down a steep hill into a bottomless pit.
The carriage drew up at the Hôtel de Paris.
The Duchesse prepared to alight and at that very moment through the swing doors came a man accompanied by a very beautiful woman, her hat was a mass of ospreys fluttering in the breeze.
Gardenia recognised the Baron at once, then, as the Duchesse reached the pavement, she looked up and saw him too.
She gave a little cry of sheer unbridled pleasure.
“Heinrich!”
It seemed as though it was difficult for her to say the word, her whole face had lit up and both her hands went out impulsively towards him.
The Baron stood looking down at them.
He was wearing his uniform and he had placed his high peaked cap on his balding head. His hand went to his eyeglass and he steadied it in his eye.
“Heinrich!” the Duchesse cried out again.
The Baron turned deliberately and gave his arm to the woman beside him.
“Let me help you down these steps, my dear Contessa,” he said.
He moved slowly and deliberately, passing the Duchesse without looking at her and then he was escorting the woman with the ospreys across the road towards the Casino.
The Duchesse stood staring after him, her face ashen-white.
For a moment Gardenia thought she might fall and her hand went out to hold her aunt’s arm. Then falteringly, a little unsteadily, as if she had received a blow between the eyes, the Duchesse walked up the steps and into the Hôtel de Paris.
She did not speak until, reaching their suite, she sank down on the sofa.
“He cut me,” she whispered. “Did you see, Gardenia, he cut me?”
“The swine! The beast! How dare he do such a thing to you?” Gardenia stormed.
“He looked at me as though he hated me,” the Duchesse sobbed and now the tears were running down her face, the mascara that she had blackened her eyes with running with them, making her look old and raddled, a woman who could have no further attraction for a man.
“It was a filthy thing to do!” Gardenia cried.
“Why should he hate me? Why?” the Duchesse asked. “I love him. I did everything that he asked of me. I refused him nothing.”
“He was using you, Aunt Lily, surely you can see that now? He was not
worth your love. You were just useful to him.”
The Duchesse took off her hat very slowly and laid it down beside her on the sofa.
“I used sometimes to think he asked too – much of me,” she whispered. “Those men he brought to – the house, but he made it sound so unimportant beside – the love we had for each other.”
The Duchesse’s voice, broken and almost incoherent, was so pitiful that Gardenia could only kneel down beside the sofa and put her arms round her.
“Don’t, Aunt Lily,” she urged. “Don’t torture yourself. He is not worth it. Forget him. We will go away. We will go to England.”
“Where we will know no one. I gave up everything for Heinrich, all my friends. He hated .them, abused them, he said it was because he was jealous of them, but I think he wanted to separate me from anyone who was respectable and decent. Oh, Gardenia, how could he desert me now?”
Her tears seemed to choke her and now she cried until she was exhausted, her breath coming fitfully between her lips.
“Come and lie down,” Gardenia insisted.
She helped her aunt into the bedroom and onto the bed. She then covered her with the eiderdown and drew down the blinds to keep out the afternoon sun.
“Try and sleep, Aunt Lily.”
“I cannot sleep. I can only think of Heinrich and the way he looked at me. Do you think he meant it, Gardenia? Do you think that perhaps there was some reason for him not wishing to speak to me at that moment? That he will come back later and explain everything?”
“You know, Aunt Lily, there is very little likelihood of that,” Gardenia said quietly.
“How could he? How could he have done it?” the Duchesse wailed, the tears flowing all over again.
Gardenia remembered that in her aunt’s dressing case there was a little bottle of sleeping pills. She found them and went to the bathroom for a glass of water.
When she came back, the Duchesse said,
“I have just remembered that the Baron owes me money, not a great sum, but he sold one of my pictures in Germany. He told me that one of his Generals was particularly anxious to have a Renoir like the one that the Duc had bought some years ago. I said he could have it for ten thousand francs. It was not as much as it is worth.”
“Ten thousand francs!” Gardenia repeated.
“It would be useful now,” the Duchesse muttered through her tears.
“Of course it would. Drink this, Aunt Lily, and you will feel better. We will talk about it later and decide what to do.”
She gave the Duchesse the sleeping tablet and went from the room, closing the door. She had no intention of allowing her to subject herself to any more humiliations from the Baron.
But she was determined that he should pay back at least what he owed. She glanced at the clock. They had been late having luncheon and now it was nearly three-thirty. She picked up the telephone and spoke to the Concierge.
“Is Baron von Knesebech staying in the hotel?” she asked.
“No, mamselle,” the Concierge replied. “Herr Baron was here for luncheon, but we have not the honour of accommodating him. He is at the Splendide.”
“Thank you.”
She sat down on her bed and started to make her plans.
The Baron had gone to the Casino. He would stay there until perhaps four-thirty, then he would return to his hotel. The Duchesse’s conversation in the train had enlightened her as to what the French meant by cinq à sept.
At five o’clock the Baron would doubtless be visiting or being visited by the attractive Contessa with the ospreys.
Gardenia waited until it was four o’clock. Then she tidied herself, picked up her gloves and went downstairs. She walked out of the Hôtel de Paris and across the gardens in front of the Casino.
She knew where the Splendide was, because she had seen the name emblazoned over the gates as she and her aunt had walked under the palm trees.
Just by the gates she sat down for a moment on one of the benches by a trickling stream with its artificial rocks and goldfish lurking beneath the water lilies.
From her bag she drew out a veil that belonged to her aunt and which was spotted with tiny black velvet spots. It was not a great disguise but she was ashamed, even though she was unknown and of no interest to anyone, to be calling on a man as despicable and unscrupulous as the Baron.
She may have appeared brave as she walked right into the Splendide, but her heart was thumping as she went up to the Concierge.
“I wish to see Baron von Knesebech.”
She expected him to lift the telephone and to ask her name.
She had her answer ready, but to her surprise the man merely said,
“Herr Baron is expecting you, madame. Room 365 on the third floor, if you please.”
The porter opened the lift door and Gardenia stepped into it.
The Concierge had confused her, she thought perhaps, with the Contessa. At any rate it saved her from any further lies. The page boy led her down the corridor.
The key was on the outside of the door of Room 365. The page boy knocked and opened the door.
She found herself in an entresol confronted by three doors. The one directly opposite was half-open and she saw that it led into the sitting room. As there was no one to announce her, she walked in.
The room was empty, but the connecting door that she guessed led into the bedroom was open and she could hear the sound of running water as if someone was washing.
The Baron must be titivating himself for the woman he was expecting, Gardenia thought. He would get a surprise when he saw who had arrived.
She looked round the room. It was the usual luxurious hotel sitting room. The Baron’s tunic emblazoned with his medals was hanging over the back of a chair. It was a writing chair in front of a desk that stood by the open window.
Casually Gardenia looked at it, not really taking in what she saw, thinking rather of what she would say when the Baron emerged from the bathroom and then found her standing there.
Something captured her attention. A telegraph form.
She wondered if it was the one that had been sent by her aunt and then she saw that beside it there was a small open book.
Without realising what she was doing, she stepped forward and looked closer. Then, as she looked at the book, she knew what it was, a book such as she herself had searched for once before!
But, while the one she had been looking for, would have been in English, this one was in German.
She picked it up.
The sound of running water still came from the bathroom.
Gardenia turned and walked slowly from the sitting room. She opened the outside door and closed it quietly behind her. She moved down the corridor and knew that she had had her revenge on the Baron, a revenge so drastic and overwhelming that for the moment even she could hardly contemplate the magnitude of it.
She walked down the stairs, not wishing the liftman to remember her or perhaps wonder why she had come from the Baron’s suite so quickly.
The hall downstairs was full of people. She moved amongst them and she hoped without being noticed and was out of the front door and onto the drive in a matter of seconds.
Only when she reached the road and started to wend her way through the traffic towards the Hôtel de Paris did she realise what this meant.
She could, if she so wished, blackmail the Baron for any amount of money or she could send the book to the British and, even as she thought about it, she knew which member of the British Foreign Office she would wish to give it to.
Gardenia reached the Hôtel de Paris. Now because she was so excited she felt as though the lift carrying her up to her aunt’s suite was slow and, when she stepped out, she ran down the corridor.
She had the keys of both her aunt’s bedroom and the sitting room in her handbag. She opened the door of the bedroom and went in. It was very quiet in there.
As the room seemed somehow hot and over-scented, Gardenia crossed to the window and drew up the blin
d.
“Aunt Lily,” she called out excitedly. “I have something to tell you!”
Her aunt was asleep, lying back on the pillows. Gardenia felt that perhaps it was unfair to wake her up, but she knew that she had to show her the little grey book.
“Aunt Lily,” she called out again and then stopped.
There was something different from how she had left the room. The bottle of sleeping tablets was not where she had left them.
She had put them on the dressing table after she had taken one out and had given it to her aunt. Now the bottle was lying on top of the eiderdown. It was empty and the top had fallen onto the floor and Gardenia’s heart gave a frightened leap.
The bottle had been full. She had thought when she opened it that at least they would not have to buy any sleeping tablets for a long time.
She picked it up and her hands were trembling. There was no need for her to touch her aunt.
She knew that she was no longer breathing.
The Duchesse had taken the easiest way out.
She was dead.
Gardenia stood looking down at her.
“Poor Aunt Lily,” she said aloud and yet she knew that she did not really pity her.
It might be wrong, indeed it might be wicked, to take one’s own life but with her beauty, her money and her love gone, there had been nothing left for the Duchesse but misery.
She would have hated being poor, she would have hated not arousing the admiration of men whoever they might be.
In her own way and by her own standards she had done the sensible thing and Gardenia, while she could feel the pathos of it, knew that she could not cry.
Very softly she crossed the room and pulled down the blinds again. In a little while she knew that she would have to telephone for the Manager, she would have to ask him to come to the sitting room and she would have to tell him what had happened.
But just for a moment she wanted her aunt to be at peace, to know nothing perhaps but utter forgetfulness and the wiping away of all misery and the peace of death.
‘I must pray,’ Gardenia thought to herself.
She pulled off her veil and hat and knelt down quite simply beside her aunt’s bed. None of the prayers that she had learnt as a child or she had used in her girlhood somehow seemed fitting. So in her own words she prayed that God would understand.
An Innocent in Paris Page 22