by Ella Carey
“Sarah.” Laurent picked up after the first couple of rings. “How are you?” He sounded friendly enough.
Sarah chewed on her lip. “Bonjour, Laurent. I’m well. And you?”
There was a pause. “Fine. Good. Merci.”
She told him about Louisa. She told him what she had learned. Laurent worked out straightaway that this made her the heir to the estate.
“I’m not going to do anything about that!” She was surprised to hear the laughter in her own voice.
“I know you won’t,” he said, sounding as if he were next to her in the cab.
They arrived at the station in Alton, and the taxi driver pulled up in front. He popped the trunk of the car open. Sarah paid him and grabbed her luggage, but then she stood there on the sidewalk. She didn’t even know which train she should catch.
“I’m just going to the ticket counter,” she said to Laurent. And decided this was utterly inane.
“Have you thought about where you’re going next?”
Sarah stood opposite the woman behind the glass counter.
“Where to?” The woman asked, looking bored.
Sarah fought the impulse to ask the attendant to make the decision. She was being ridiculous. She could hardly just go back to Paris.
She closed her eyes and took in a breath.
“Where to, please?” An indentation appeared between the woman’s brows, and she peered past Sarah in a telling fashion at the queue that was forming behind her back.
Sarah clutched at her suitcase handle. And decided she must have completely lost her mind.
“You’d better give her an answer.” Laurent sounded as if he were amused now, as if the thing were a huge joke.
Sarah stood stuck on the spot.
Had she ever done such a thing? No. She had let Steven find her. She had let Steven search her out. She had gone along with it. Why hadn’t she ever taken her own destiny into her hands? What was that about?
“Do what you want to do, Sarah,” Laurent said. “Just tell her where you want to go. It’s your call. You can do what you like.”
The woman stared at Sarah as if she were crazy. Okay, she had gone to Paris. Okay, that had been a risk. But she had been researching Louisa. It was about her family. Now she had the chance to make her life about what she wanted, perhaps for the first time ever. All that loss, all that sadness—but what she had left, what she had now, was herself.
“Paris,” she said, finally, waiting for a reaction down the line.
The woman handed Sarah a pair of tickets. One to London. One to France. Asked for the next person to come forward in the queue. Sarah stepped aside.
“Great,” Laurent said. “That’s great,” he repeated, and she smiled at his genuineness.
Sarah knew he meant what he said. That was the thing about Laurent. She took the tickets to Paris and wandered across to the platform opposite, where she stopped at a magazine stand. Perhaps she would buy something lovely to read on the way back. Vogue? She chuckled at the thought that Laurent’s work would be in an issue not far off.
“What time do you get in?” Laurent asked, his voice still intimate.
“Four o’clock,” she said. Paris at four? It sounded like the perfect idea. She picked up the magazine and paid for it, smiling at the old man behind the counter.
“I have to be at the Louvre all afternoon. Otherwise I’d pick you up. But why don’t you drop your things at the apartment? Cat’s there. She’ll let you in. Then come to the Louvre, meet me. Would you like to go out for dinner, after that?”
“I’d love to,” she said, not caring that a grin had spread onto her face. “See you later.”
So she climbed onto the train and began her trip to Paris.
Sarah rested her head on the back of the seat and watched as the train moved past rolling green fields and through towns filled with half-timbered houses and old market squares. It was different here from Boston, and difference, Sarah knew, was what she needed in her life now. She had been percolating an idea for the past few days, having realized that in many ways, she didn’t want to go back home to work just now. What if she made a suggestion to Amanda? What if she were to curate an exhibition, a collaboration between the museum in Boston and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs? She had even dreamed up a title: Paris during the Belle Époque: The Lost World of the Courtesan.
Because Marthe’s world had been lost. The discovery of her apartment had been profound, in many ways. It was a little remnant of the distant past, a past that had not been given much consideration once it was overshadowed by those two world wars.
When Sarah knocked on the door of Marthe de Florian’s old apartment, Cat came straight to the door.
“Hey,” Cat said, leaning forward and enveloping her in a hug. Sarah embraced the other girl back. And also hugged a baby, a dark-haired, brown-eyed little person wrapped in a gossamer shawl.
“Hello,” Sarah said, unable to resist touching the baby’s button nose.
“This is Isabelle.” Cat smiled. “Isabelle, meet Sarah.”
Sarah smiled at the baby, and the tiny girl looked back.
Cat adjusted her tiny daughter in her arms. “Come in, Sarah. I’ve been up here to interview a photographer. Loic and I are going back down to Provence this evening. But Laurent’s still in town. He’s been asked to paint at the Louvre for a week. Students can go and watch him paint, so he’s working on some of the Boldini projects there for now. I hope you enjoyed England? Come in. Let’s have a coffee.”
Sarah smiled at her. “Yes, yes, I did enjoy England . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Cat didn’t ask awkward questions. That was a relief.
“I’m pleased,” Cat said. “As for Laurent, he’s inundated with students. Apparently, the entire final-year art history class at the Sorbonne was told to just go and sit and watch him for a few days as part of their studies in current artistic trends. So they are, apparently. All of them.”
Sarah wondered if she should interrupt. “But won’t I just add to the crowds?”
Cat paused for a moment, and it was as if she was contemplating what to say next. “We had a bit of a chat with Laurent last night, Sarah. Loic got him to talk—he tends to be good at drawing people out.”
Sarah waited for Cat to continue.
“Laurent wants to see you,” she said, reaching forward and resting a hand on Sarah’s arm. “He was lost, for a while. It seems that before he met you—well, he tells us that he’s never felt anything so real in his life. He was so hoping that you’d come back. But he wasn’t going to push you. He’d never do that. The bad boy thing really wasn’t working. It wasn’t him. But I suspect you knew that.”
Sarah chuckled her agreement, but her mind latched onto one thing Cat had said. “He told you and Loic that he was hoping I’d come back to Paris?”
Cat nodded. “He did.”
Sarah stood still. Ran a hand over her bob. And then she let it swell, that feeling, that sense that everything just might be coming right. Was she at last at the point of realizing that no matter how bad things got, no matter how dark it all seemed, there was also, in the end, light?
“I don’t think I need that coffee,” Sarah said. Suddenly, she wanted to rush to the Louvre.
Cat grinned back at her. “Just go and see him.”
Sarah turned and went to the door, and then she stopped, because Cat was saying something else.
“Sarah,” Cat said, “welcome to Paris.”
Sarah managed to avoid the long queues outside the Louvre. She used her pass to the Museum of Fine Arts, which allowed her to go straight to the front of the queues. Soon she was wending her way to the room where Laurent was painting, having asked directions from someone at the information desks. If there was one thing she could do, she could find her way through a crowded museum. She could do that like a pro.
Sarah stopped behind the large group of students that was hiding Laurent from view in one of the rooms off a wide corridor full of Ita
lian art. Slowly, politely, she tried to make her way through the crowd so that she could see him.
Suddenly, a student stood up, taking his folding chair into his arms and holding it aside. He indicated that she go right on past. Sarah thanked him, with a smile, and then another student moved her seat out of the way. And another. Until there was a direct, smooth path that led to the front. This was so very polite that Sarah was enchanted.
French, perhaps?
Were students in Paris always this well-mannered?
Something stirred in the crowd. A murmur turned into something else. People were muttering, staring at her as she made her way through.
When Laurent looked up from his easel, his face broke into the smile that she knew she would always love.
“Hello,” he said simply.
Sarah couldn’t move.
The room was silent.
Laurent’s eyes met hers. Right across the room. As if there were no one else there.
And slowly, Sarah moved farther up the aisle that the students had made for her. Until she stopped, awkward, at the front. And stared at the easel. And frowned. And bit her lip.
“This one’s not for sale,” he said, his head tilted to one side. “It’s going in my apartment. After all, Marthe had a portrait of herself in her bedroom. I wanted one of you.”
Sarah stared at the canvas in front of her. He had made her dark hair shine and her eyes and face were clear and her complexion was creamy and she smiled. Straight at the viewer. Confident in herself. She didn’t look boring or reliable or in any way dull. Because he had captured her as she was now. Here. Not that shell of a girl who had been crippled by grief before she came to Paris.
Laurent had painted her in an evening dress. It was black, and she wore long black gloves. She wasn’t adorned with diamonds or rubies at her throat, not like Marthe, perhaps, would have been. But on her dress, he had painted a brooch, on the left side, right in front of her heart, and she peered at it. On it was a tiny and exquisite little portrait in itself.
It was a miniature. Venus, coming out of her shell. A tiny rendition of the Botticelli. Sarah turned to him, shaking her head. Right now, she didn’t care about the students or the crowds in the gallery. Laurent reached forward, tilting her chin up toward his face.
“Thank you,” she said.
He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers, for one exquisite moment.
“No. It’s I who have to thank you, Sarah.”
And the audience started to applaud.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The premise of this book, while obviously linked with my previous novels, Paris Time Capsule and The House by the Lake, is inspired by an interesting little story that I will share with you here. When I was young, my mother told me something that was probably fatal to share with a little girl who had a big imagination!
We would go for walks together around the old suburb of North Adelaide, in southern Australia where I grew up. The area is filled with beautiful colonial mansions, as well as cottages in some of the narrower streets.
My mother grew up in North Adelaide, and I remember her stopping outside one of the suburb’s grand old homes and telling me about a party she was at during the 1930s when she was eighteen. I can still see the house, even though I have not walked past it for many years. I can picture the driveway, the balcony, and the sense of sadness that I projected onto the lovely old facade. I can still feel for the eighteen-year-old girl who jumped out of a window and fell to her death in the middle of the party.
I don’t know how old I was when my mother told me this story—perhaps eight, an impressionable age. But this girl’s tragedy informed the premise for From a Paris Balcony, and I would like to acknowledge here, in a small way, that young girl and the tragedy that surrounded her.
As many of you will know, Marthe de Florian was a courtesan during Belle Époque Paris. My characterization of her in this book is based entirely on my own imaginings, while the historical context surrounding her has all been, of course, researched. I wanted to delve into the courtesan as a person rather than thinking of her merely in relation to her role. I think this is the strength of historical fiction. Getting into someone’s head gives us an entirely different perspective than reading a nonfiction book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
From A Paris Balcony took on a life of its own and gathered me up with it. Louisa, Sarah, Charlie, Henry, and I have been on quite a journey! This book was written for the most part in the early mornings. I have discovered that the early hours are the perfect time to write. But, after enough first drafts were done, it was time to send the whole thing to my wonderful editor, Jodi Warshaw, and I thank her once again for her hard work and her calm, thoughtful approach to every part of our work. To Tegan Tegani, my developmental editor—I loved working with you. You have a terrific sense of humor and a real talent for bringing strands together, for tying ends up that were meant to meet, especially when dealing with a dual narrative. To my copyeditor, Amanda Gibson, once again, thank you. Your approach to detail is superb and most appreciated. Thank you to the proofreader, Ramona Gault.
Thank you to the cover designer, Shasti O’Leary Soudant, for your beautiful image of Louisa.
And thank you to the entire team at Lake Union Publishing—in particular, to Gabriella Dumpit and Michael Grenetz for doing such great work in the marketing department.
Thanks to Nas Dean and to my wonderful, widening group of readers for all your lovely daily messages, e-mails, and support. I enjoy chatting with you! Thank you to all the literary bloggers who have reviewed and read my books.
Thank you to Sue Brockhoff and the team at Harlequin Australia for releasing a new print version of Paris Time Capsule. It is a privilege to work with you.
And finally, to my intelligent, incredible closest friends—Ris Wilkinson, Kelli Jones, Fiona Calvert, and Tom Jarvis—whom The House by the Lake is really for, because you are always there for me. To all my other friends, thank you—you know who you are. Thanks to my sister, Jane, for everything and to my children, Ben and Sophie. May you both always be able to make your own decisions about the most important things in your lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Alexandra Grimshaw
Ella Carey is a writer and Francophile who claims Paris as her second home. Her previous books are Paris Time Capsule and The House by the Lake, and her work has been published in the Review of Australian Fiction. She lives in Australia with her two children and two Italian greyhounds.