Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  ‘Well, ’ard cheese,’ Pol said, pleasantly enough, and pushed harder.

  ‘Mam’selle!’ The word was urgent. ‘I implore you! A chance, simply, to introduce myself—’

  The opening had been reduced to a crack no more than three inches wide. ‘Introduce away,’ Pol said, agreeably.

  ‘I am Charles Parisot. Mam’selle Daniels will undoubtedly know of me—’

  Pol glanced at Kitty, who shook her head. ‘I think not, Monsewer,’ Pol said, drily.

  ‘But yes! Of course! I have many theatres and cafe concerts – in Paris and in Bordeaux – my name is known throughout Europe!’

  ‘Not ’ere it isn’t.’ Pol, putting all her considerable strength into the effort, was winning the battle of the door.

  On impulse Kitty smoothed her hair, drew her loose gown around her. ‘All right, Pol.’ She winked. ‘Let him in.’

  Pol looked at her in surprise.

  Kitty shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Mam’selle Daniels!’ With exaggerated gestures the Frenchman entered, elegantly and gallantly bending over her hand, snow-white gloves, silver-topped cane held with his top hat in one hand, a single bright diamond on the hand that held hers. ‘I come to tell you – you are a wonder! An enchantment! Parisot – even Parisot! – is smitten! What style – what panache—!’ He placed a rose on the table before her, reached for her hand again, pressed his lips not to her knuckles but to her open palm. Over the bent head Kitty’s eyes signalled hilarious disbelief and Pol screwed her face up in open laughter.

  ‘—When my good friend Kenny tells me he has discovered a sensation, I tell myself – phut! The Irishman exaggerates again! But no. This time every word he speaks is truth. Mam’selle Daniels – I come to tell you – you are wasted here! Wasted!’ He straightened. He was still holding her hand. Gently she disengaged it. He looked regretful, but did not openly protest. ‘Mam’selle, I have something of enormous importance to put to you—’ He looked round and indicated a nearby chair. ‘I may sit?’

  ‘By all means.’ The man’s every word was accompanied by gestures of such immoderation that Kitty found it difficult to take anything he said very seriously.

  Parisot drew a spindle-legged chair very close to hers. ‘Europe – Paris – La Ville Lumière – awaits you, Mam’selle!’

  Kitty kept a perfectly straight face. ‘Really?’

  He sat back. ‘You joke with me?’

  ‘Of course not, M’sieu. But – forgive me – this is a little sudden, is it not?’

  He smiled a small, utterly charming smile. ‘Mam’selle – great passions are always sudden, are they not?’

  She could not help but laugh. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘But of course. Love does not wait upon convenience, Mam’selle. And Paris will love you, as you will love Paris. You know my wonderful city?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  The beringed hands spread, the eyes rolled dramatically. ‘Ah – but then I envy you! For what an experience you have to come! To see Paris for the very first time – and in the spring! To walk her streets, to feel her heart beat – Mam’selle Daniels, Paris is a flower of a city! The centre of Europe! The jewel in the crown of the world! And now – this year – her glory is doubled by the efforts of our Emperor! You have heard of the Great Exhibition?’

  Kitty shook her head again. ‘No.’ Despite herself she was fascinated by the flamboyance of the man, the odd, almost irresistible warmth he exuded.

  He leaned forward again. ‘In the summer, Mam’selle, Paris is to be the scene of the greatest exhibition the world has ever seen, or will ever see again! Art! Music! Culture! Science! The wonders of our modem world! All the elegance, all the knowledge of man will be there – and to see it will come the cream of Europe, and beyond. Crowned heads, Mam’selle – the Czar, the Kaiser, your own dear Queen – and you – you, Mam’selle Daniels! – shall be part of it all!’

  She stared at him, bemused, still half-laughing. ‘M’sieu—!’

  ‘No, no!’ He held up an imperious hand. ‘Say nothing! A word spoken swiftly will always be regretted!’ He paused. Kitty wondered if he ever spoke in anything but exclamations. His next words, spoken softly and persuasively, the dauntlessly charming smile flitting once more across his face, seemed to prove that he did not. ‘Come to dinner with me, Mam’selle! We will speak of it! I will persuade you!’

  She had to laugh. ‘M’sieu Parisot, I’m afraid—’

  ‘Ah, but no! You will not – you cannot? – refuse me, Mam’selle? A few short hours in your delightful company is all I ask. I will tell you of Paris. I will tell you of my theatres. I will tell you of the sensation you will cause in my wonderful city—!’

  ‘And will you tell me, M’sieu, of your wife and beautiful children?’ she asked, gently mischievous.

  He looked surprised, even a little hurt. ‘But of course!’ He smiled, wickedly. ‘I have daguerreotypes.’

  She considered that. ‘Which you don’t, of course, carry upon your person?’

  He shrugged. ‘Ah, but no, Mam’selle – they are—’

  ‘—in your hotel room?’ she finished.

  ‘But yes.’

  ‘I thought they might be.’ The man entertained her enormously. She laughed suddenly, coming to an impulsive decision. Let Luke think she was moping alone over cocoa and biscuits! She held out her hand. ‘Dinner? Yes – why not?’ She wagged a stern finger. ‘Daguerreotypes and hotel rooms? Definitely not.’

  ‘Mam’selle,’ he said collectedly, ‘your good sense is exceeded only by your beauty. I’ll wait while you dress.’

  ‘Outside,’ she said, firmly.

  Mournfully he nodded. ‘Outside.’

  * * *

  ‘The funny thing is that I think it’s really all true!’ Kitty told Pol later, curled in an armchair before the dying fire in the little sitting room of number twenty-three. Amy had gone to bed long ago – it had amused Kitty to find Pol, dozing but determinedly waiting, when she had arrived home. ‘He really does have theatres in Paris and Bordeaux. And there really is to be a great international exhibition in Paris this summer. And M’sieu Parisot really is going to open a new theatre – the Moulin d’Or – to coincide with it—’

  ‘An’ I s’pose ’e really does ’ave a wife an’ children, too?’

  Kitty spread expressive, Gallic hands. ‘But of course!’ she said, her voice heavily accented, and giggled. The champagne had been very good indeed. ‘The children are at school in England, and he really did have pictures of them. Oh, Pol – I rather like him. Once he stopped trying to get me into bed with him he was very nice. He even got round to admitting that the reason that he’s over here looking for someone to open at the Moulin d’Or in the summer is because the girl he originally booked had been poached by one of his rivals. He threatens a duel!’ She laughed again, then sobered, and sat for a moment looking into the glowing embers of the fire. ‘Paris,’ she said pensively.

  ‘You really think ’e’s serious? About givin’ you a job? I mean ’e’s not just – you know – after the other?’

  Kitty grinned. ‘Oh, that too, if he can get it. But – yes – I think he’s serious.’

  ‘An’ are you?’

  The expression on Kitty’s face was faintly defiant. ‘Luke tells me I should take some chances,’ she said. ‘Why not this one?’

  ‘Seems a long shot?’

  Kitty lifted a shoulder, turned her gaze back to the fire. ‘That doesn’t stop me thinking about it, does it?’

  * * *

  Charles Parisot laid siege to Kitty as if he were a general determined to bring about the downfall of a citadel. He came to the theatre each evening, he sent flowers and outrageously expensive perfume, he entertained her, whenever she allowed him, to dinner. His light-hearted charm amused her, as did his declarations of devotion. She adamantly resisted all his efforts to get her into bed. She asked Patrick Kenny about him and was reassured that yes, he was indeed what he said he was and more.
‘He’s one of the greatest showmen in France, if not in Europe. If you can stay out of reach of those hands of his he could do a lot for you. But – a word in your ear – watch his wife!’ Kenny grimaced, unsmiling. ‘Believe me, that lady could – and would – tear you apart with her bare hands if she thought you were after Charles. At least one aspiring star I know of felt the brunt of Madame’s anger and won’t ever forget it. And neither will she work again.’

  Luke, too, was amused by the flamboyance of the Frenchman, obviously, Kitty observed a little wryly, in no way seeing in him a rival for her affections. His arrogance, she thought, sometimes could be quite breathtaking. Their quarrel, such as it was, had been patched up a couple of days after it had happened, and Luke was in her dressing room when Charles Parisot’s first gigantic bouquet was delivered.

  ‘Good God!’ Luke said mildly. ‘Do you think he’s robbed Kew Gardens? They surely couldn’t all have come from the same shop?’

  ‘M’sieu Parisot doesn’t do things by halves.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Luke leaned back in his chair, watching her as she removed her stage make-up. Monty Montague’s black silk top hat was perched at a rakish angle on his head. Luke was in high good humour. Kitty strongly suspected he was planning a fresh coup. ‘Would it be ungallant of me to ask just what M’sieu is after?’

  She laughed. ‘Much the same as any other man. Except—’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘He’s serious about this job in Paris. He’s been let down – he badly needs a replacement, and quickly. He really does think I’m the one.’

  ‘You should take it,’ he said, positively.

  She quelled irrational disappointment. That she was considering the Frenchman’s offer she had not told Luke – she had half-hoped that when she told him he might try to dissuade her. ‘Isn’t it a bit soon?’ she asked, perversely. ‘I’m only just getting established here.’

  ‘My dear Kitty – poor Jem was right about one thing if about nothing else – Paris at the moment is the centre of civilized Europe. A successful season there would make you.’

  She turned back to the mirror. ‘You wouldn’t miss me?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  She dabbed furiously at her face.

  ‘Take it, Kitty,’ he said, ‘it could be the chance of a lifetime. And that is what you want – isn’t it?’

  She went to dinner again with the Frenchman three evenings later; by the end of the evening he had agreed to give her ten days in which to make up her mind whether or not she would accept his offer. She hoped that that might cool his more personal pursuit, but it was not to be. The next day more flowers arrived, together with a note suggesting that she might like to meet him that evening after the performance, for dinner at his hotel. She read the note, then re-read it, her long, square-tipped finger tapping thoughtfully upon the table.

  Pol snorted. ‘What does the feller think – that yer floated upriver on the last ’igh tide? Dinner at ’is ’otel indeed! You aren’t goin’, are yer?’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. But I don’t think I’ll tell him that. M’sieu Parisot really does have to be shown that I’m interested in his job, not his splendid person – if he won’t accept that, I shan’t go to Paris anyway. I shan’t reply. It won’t do him any harm at all to expect me and to kick his heels alone tonight.’

  In the event, however, it appeared that Charles Parisot’s ardour had been cooled some other way. Just before the evening’s performance a small boy in the claret and blue uniform of the Great Royal Hotel knocked at the dressing-room door. ‘Note for Miss Daniels.’

  Upon the claret-edged, pale blue notepaper Charles had apologized, picturesquely and profusely, for having to cancel their engagement at the last moment. An affair of great importance had cropped up and, regretfully, for now and for the next few days he would be, with extravagant regret, unavailable.

  Well Kitty tossed the note upon the table. ‘That takes care of that anyway.’

  Pol grinned irrepressibly. ‘’Is wife probably turned up.’

  Kitty was searching through her purse for a coin to give the messenger boy. ‘If I thought that was true I’d turn a cartwheel better than one of Springer’s. Nothing could suit me better. Here.’ Smiling, she handed the lad a sixpence.

  ‘She did,’ he said.

  Kitty blinked. ‘Who did? What?’

  ‘The Frenchie’s wife. Turned up.’ The boy grinned, slyly pert. ‘What a to-do! She was the third Madame Parisot we’d seen in as many weeks – an’ a likely fourth was lunchin’ in the dinin’ room with ’im. Never saw anyone move so fast in me life.’

  Kitty surveyed him, thought in her eyes. ‘You mean – the real Madame Parisot turned up? From Paris?’

  ‘The very same.’ He grinned again. ‘Unexpected-like. Large as life an’ twice as mad.’

  ‘And she’s staying with him? At the Royal?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Tell me—’ Kitty had dipped into her purse again and was toying with a sixpence. ‘You wouldn’t know if they’re dining at the hotel tonight?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Took the message meself.’

  Kitty handed him the other sixpence. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.’

  * * *

  When she arrived at the Great Royal later that night the dining room was thronged with diners and the meal – as she had planned – was well under way. She had taken great care with her appearance – her dark red velvet gown, if not exactly demure, was restrained and she had had Pol coil her hair severely at the nape of her neck and confine it in a dark silk hairnet. Her only jewellery was a slim golden chain that Luke had given her. She looked, she thought, the very personification of respectability.

  ‘I on’y ’ope yer know what yer doin’,’ Pol had grumbled for the dozenth time. ‘This Madame what’s ’er name don’t sound like a lady ter be trifled with.’

  ‘I’m not going to trifle with her.’ Kitty had patted her hair sleekly to her head. ‘I’m simply going to try to make sure that her husband stops trifling with me!’

  Now she handed her velvet cape to the waiter who hovered questioningly at her side. ‘M’sieu Parisot’s table, please. He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Yes, Madam. This way.’

  She followed him, threading her way through the crowded tables. In a far corner of the room she could see her prey. Half-hidden by a monstrous aspidistra, Charles Parisot sat with his back to her approach. Opposite him sat a statuesque and striking woman in vivid emerald silk. A mass of black hair was piled in a glittering tower upon her head. Her bare, sloping shoulders were magnificent. Diamonds glittered at throat and ears. Fierce dark brows arched above enormous eyes, Spanish-dark. She looked, Kitty thought, quailing suddenly, a prima donna straight from the stage at Covent Garden. She took a breath, then swooped upon the table. ‘Charles, my dear – I’m so sorry I’m late!’

  She saw the shock in his eyes, the almost terrorized glance he threw at his wife. She turned, smiled her warmest smile. ‘And you, surely, must be Charles’ wife? I couldn’t be mistaken – Charles has spoken of you so often – I truly feel as if I know you. Are you here to visit the children? Charles has shown me their pictures – such lovely little things! Little Marie has your eyes, has she not? Charles, you naughty thing’ – she felt a nervous hilarity bubble at the frozen look on the man’s face – ‘why didn’t you tell me that Madame Parisot was going to be here? I would have tried much harder not to be late!’ She laughed a little – easy to do with the elegant and assured Charles Parisot staring at her for all the world like a goldfish stranded a very long way from its bowl. She proffered her hand to Madame Parisot, let quite genuine admiration show in her eyes and voice. ‘Madame, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Charles never stops speaking of you. Now that I’ve met you I must say that I can see why.’ She stopped then and waited, patiently polite.

  Charles, with an effort, collected himself. ‘Chérie – this is Mam’selle Daniels. I have told y
ou of her—’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Of course.’ Madame’s English, like her husband’s was meticulously correct if heavily accented. ‘How do you do?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you.’

  Charles was still struggling somewhat. ‘Kitty – Miss Daniels – I—’

  She regarded him, artlessly questioning. He subsided. His forehead was beaded finely with sweat.

  ‘Mam’selle Daniels’ – Madame’s voice was as velvet dark as her eyes – ‘you had perhaps arranged to meet my husband this evening?’ Her glance flicked to Parisot, who all but physically flinched from it.

  ‘Why, yes.’ Kitty was innocence personified. ‘I assumed we were to talk of the contract. I can’t make up my mind until I know – oh, Charles!’ She turned. ‘I’m so sorry! Did I make a mistake? I was so sure that your note said tonight—?’

  ‘I – sent another note—’

  ‘Another?’

  ‘Explaining—’ He made a weak gesture towards his wife.

  ‘You sent a note to the theatre?’

  He nodded.

  ‘There! That’s that scatterbrained Pol again! She must have forgotten to give it to me. And – I’ve interrupted your meal together. Oh, I’m mortified – I’m so sorry!’ She made a small, prettily apologetic gesture, not to Parisot but to his wife.

  Madame’s glance held in its depth a distinct and astute gleam of amusement. ‘You would care to join us perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, no – I couldn’t—’ Kitty had made no move to rise.

  ‘But yes’ – the gleaming eyes flickered again – ‘I have a feeling that we might find we have much in common, Miss Daniels.’ The tiny, diverting moment of conspiracy passed Charles Parisot by completely. He looked bemusedly from one to the other.

  ‘Well – if you’re sure—’ Kitty replied, smiling.

  Smiling in return, Genevieve Parisot raised a long, commanding finger. ‘Garçon! Another place, s’il vous plaît…’

  * * *