“I’m sure you’re not,” Claude Marchand said, patting her hand. “And I can understand that you are concerned about your aunt.”
He gave her a warm, avuncular smile.
“You are a very pretty, and friendly, and candid young woman, and I have enjoyed this time together with you, Mademoiselle Easton. I’m a little lonely these days, and a chance meeting with charming young American girls doesn’t happen to me every day in the week.”
He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a card case, from which he extracted a single piece of pasteboard.
“If you should ever be in trouble, or need a friend,” he told her, “here is my address and telephone number. I live nearby here. Perhaps you will feel a little bit better if you know that there is someone you can depend on in an emergency.”
He stood up, wished her a pleasant day and many other pleasant days, and said that now he was a little past due for a meeting with a colleague.
Then, with a little salute and a charming smile, he walked off and disappeared into the shrubbery beyond.
Iris put the card he had given her into her own card case, sat there for a few minutes longer, and got up. It was time to hie herself to Montparnasse for the next adventure.
She walked back the way she had come, up the Avenue Marceau, and found a Metro station near the Etoile. There was a map of Metro routes posted outside, which showed her which line to take and which station to get off, or substantially so. If she got off at the wrong station, at least it would be in the arrondissement she wanted.
And it was quite a little excitement to be riding the Paris subway. First one had to buy a ticket at a little booth, and Iris had trouble with what her aunt called the “yellow money,” meaning the very small change. Centimes were a mystery even to Louisa, and she generally left all her “yellow money” behind with the room attendant, along with the customary tip.
It was decided for her, however, when she simply deposited a heap of centimes on the counter. The proper amount was taken and Iris was given her ticket.
After that there was another hassle. At the bottom of the stairs that led down to the train platform, a gate suddenly closed in front of Iris, trapping her behind it. A subway car came and went, and then the gate, as if by legerdemain, opened and freed her.
It was all great fun, and when she stepped out into daylight again, after getting off at Montparnasse-Bienvenue station, found herself in a section of the city teeming with activity.
It was a very warm day and rather humid, seeming to be about ten degrees hotter than where she had just come from, the riverside freshness of the Place de l’Alma.
It was an old district, of course … and in many places a bit seedy … but it was Montparnasse, with echoes of Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, and Picasso, Chagall and their ilk. This was hallowed soil to any lover of the arts and, like any lover of the arts Iris was bent on wandering about on streets that had known the footsteps of those she admired, of those who were now dead … but only in the flesh.
She was there for all of the hours remaining to her, reveling in the street names that evoked so much, and she had coffee at three celebrated cafes — the Dome, Coupole and Closérie des Lilas.
This meant a fair amount of footwork, and just as much time, so that when she had paid her check at the Closérie, and looked at her watch, she knew she would have to hurry in order to be back at the hotel in time to bathe and change for the evening’s dinner in Montmartre.
She almost fell asleep on the Metro, and came near missing her stop. She walked the short distance to the Place Vendôme and to the hotel in a contented daze, congratulating herself on her success in doing it all without any help.
“Well, how did it go?” Louisa asked, when Iris arrived home.
“Fantastic. I even took the Metro.”
Louisa laughed. “I knew you would.”
“I went to — ”
“Tell me later,” her aunt said firmly. “It’s way after four and you’ll have to bathe and change as quickly as possible.”
“Okay. How was your day?”
“Nothing exciting. Old and valued friends whom I always enjoy seeing, but it would have been boring for you.”
Iris surveyed her aunt. The freshly-done hair, and with a touch-up, she noted. It was a good hairdo, very flattering, with a little swirl of hair over the forehead.
Aunt Louisa looked very pretty, very svelte, and very radiant. She didn’t look as if she’d had a long, boring lunch with old and valued friends.
But I must not jump to conclusions, Iris told herself for the nth time, as she sat in the enormous tub and sprayed the hand shower over herself.
It was dangerous to have too lively an imagination.
But she wasn’t looking forward to tonight. The three of them again, and then what?
Tomorrow again? The day after tomorrow … and so on, ad infinitum?
I do wish, she thought fervently, that we had never gone to that horrid little cafe on the Place St. Michel … and met that wretched Paul Chandon.
Eleven
It was unaccustomedly difficult, once Iris had stepped out of the shower, to get dressed and ready for her evening on the Butte. She got a dress and then changed her mind. No, not that one; it was too frou-frou, too girlish.
She riffled through the clothes in the big armoire and took out another one, eyeing it critically.
Impatiently, she put it back.
Damn it, what was she going to wear?
She went back, totally uncoordinated, to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and felt dissatisfied with her face.
Too much eyeshadow. And her hair didn’t look right.
She took the hairbrush and attacked her hair again.
Then she wiped off some of the eyeshadow.
Now there was too little!
And what dress was she going to put on?
Oh, why weren’t they going to some little restaurant nearby? Just she and her aunt. She felt bone tired, jumpy, and yearned for bed and a book.
The ring of the telephone almost jerked her off her feet.
Dear Lord, she thought, my nerves are in a terrible state.
She picked up the phone. “Hello,” she snapped.
“I am sorry,” the operator’s voice said. “I meant to ring Madame Collinge’s room.”
“Yes … well, all right,” Iris said, and almost knocked the phone off the bedside table hanging up the receiver.
She stood there in her bra and panties, considering. Maybe, she thought, maybe Paul Chandon was on the phone, saying that, after all, he was unable to have dinner with them.
Hope flared and then died. There was a knock on the door.
“Iris, nearly ready?” her aunt’s voice called. “The desk just rang and said Paul’s in the lobby.”
So much for wild hopes, Iris thought, drooping.
“Nearly ready,” she called back.
There was a silence. Then, “Are you coming out soon, dear?”
“Uh … you’re all set to go?”
“Yes, and waiting for you.”
Iris yanked open the door. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Can you go down and keep him company? I’ll try to hurry.”
“Good heavens, look at you! Iris, darling, how long will you be?”
“Five minutes at the outside,” her niece promised.
Her aunt looked doubtful.
“I’m all dressed, really. Just got to put something on and I’ll be right down.”
“Very well, then, I’ll take him to the lounge. We’ll have a quick aperitif. Join us there … but dear, do make it snappy.”
“Yes, yes.”
Somehow she got herself together and, breathing deeply because she so dreaded the thought of the evening ahead, she went out into the corridor, locked the door and, feeling like a sacrificial lamb, stoically went down the two flights of stairs to the lounge which was filled with people having drinks, so that the room was humming with conviviality. The Hotel Vendôme had no dining room, and the
bar lounge was consequently a popular place for those who stayed there.
Iris stood just inside the doorway, looking for her aunt. She didn’t spot her right away, but when she did, she stepped back sharply. Her aunt was there, all right, and so was Chandon. They were sitting at a far table, in a little corner by one of the windows. There was a drink in front of each, but they weren’t sipping. They were smiling into each other’s eyes, and Louisa’s two hands were joined with Paul’s hands across the table.
Paling, her breath coming in shallow gasps, Iris stared, her worst fears realized. Those two people, seemingly unaware of anyone else but each other, told the whole tale. It was so obvious!
For a moment she wanted to flee, go back to her room, just get away …
But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t just leave her aunt in the hands of this lounge lizard, this beach boy type. She couldn’t simply wash her hands of the whole business.
She squared her shoulders, cleared her throat, and walked purposefully forward. When she had managed to squeeze through a crowded table or two and reach the corner where Paul and her aunt were seated, they were no longer clasping hands. Her aunt was holding her liqueur glass and Paul was lighting a cigarette.
He got up immediately and pulled out a chair for Iris.
“Bon soir,” he said.
“Bon soir.”
“What took you so long?” Louisa wanted to know.
“Frankly, I was tired. I walked all over creation today.”
“What will you have to drink, Mademoiselle?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
“Oh, have some vermouth or something,” her aunt urged.
“I’ll wait until before dinner. I’d rather.”
“You don’t look tired,” Paul Chandon commented. “In fact, you look bright-eyed and very, very chic in that lovely dress.”
Iris’s eyes surveyed him quickly. He was meticulously turned out, as opposed to the other two times she had seen him. He had on a handsomely-cut suit in a lightweight twill and also light in color, a silk shirt with a faint pin stripe and a tie that had probably set him back twenty-five or thirty dollars.
This Paul Chandon clearly had expensive tastes.
With his deep tan, dark hair and deepset eyes, he was a man any woman would look at more than twice.
And that was just the trouble. He was too good-looking, too dashing, too spectacular. Men that handsome found conquests just too easy … and were rarely to be trusted. This particular one wasn’t to be trusted at all.
“Did you have a pleasant day?” he asked her. “I understand that you were left to your own devices.”
“I had a lovely day, thank you.”
“Good.” He tossed off the rest of his drink. “Suppose I go downstairs and phone for a taxi at the desk. Then you can take your time and come down when you are ready.”
“Fine,” Louisa agreed. “We’ll be right with you.”
He stood up, gave one of his formal little bows, and strode off.
Louisa’s eyes followed him. “Doesn’t he look wonderful this evening,” she murmured. “Don’t you think he’s a singularly attractive young man?”
“Chacun à son gout,” Iris said, forcing a smile.
“Iris, I …”
There was a small pause, while Iris waited warily. Her aunt had such an odd look on her face.
“Yes, Auntie?”
“I want you to have a good time tonight. I mean by that, I want you to have a superlative evening — an evening you’ll remember.”
She leaned forward. “We’re going to one of the most bewitching spots in all Paris,” she said softly. “The Place du Tertre. It’s at the top of one of the city’s seven hills, at the very crest of Paris. There’s the cathedral, Sacré Coeur, white as white, like alabaster, and it’s a kind of crown Paris wears. Say what you will about the dubiousness of its architecture, it’s beautiful, bizarrely beautiful. And there’s a rampart at its base, where you stand, looking down at the city, which at eventide is dusky, hushed, and … and everything seems to come to a kind of standstill.”
Louisa’s eyes were far-seeing, as if she were talking to herself. “Then,” she said, “as the day darkens … rapidly now … a light winks on down below in that great city. And then another light. And another … and in the twinkling of an eye, that city down there is a great blaze of glory, as the lights go on all over Paris.”
She looked earnestly into her niece’s eyes. “I’ve seen that moving sight many, many times. But the first time you see it is the most meaningful, the most important. Never again will the impact be quite as thrilling. Always glorious, yes, but never, ever again as potent.”
Louisa’s eyes were shining … and part of the shimmer in them was from tears that lay behind them. But her voice, when she spoke again, was steady, and she smiled tenderly at Iris.
“I don’t want anything, anything to interfere with this first time for you,” she said. “For me, darling, put everything else aside. Everything. Just let yourself go. Let yourself feel. Let your eyes be your heart tonight. Will you do that for me?”
Touched to the quick, Iris nodded. “I will, of course I will,” she promised. “And thank you, Auntie, for painting such a lovely picture. If you love it so, then so will I. You must realize that I’ve dreamed about this kind of beauty all my life.”
“Then,” Louisa said briskly, “shall we go?”
• • •
The taxi wound through the streets of the city, fighting the heavy traffic and, at many corners, rounding them on two wheels … or so it seemed. Drivers leaned on their horns, and cab hackies cursed each other loudly at intersections.
Louisa, naturally, had climbed in first, then Iris, so that Paul Chandon was on the outside, at Iris’s right. Whenever a sharp turn occurred, she and Paul were thrown together and he would say politely, “Sorry,” as shoulders and legs brushed one against the other.
Grin and bear it, Iris bade herself, and sat stiffly, shunning the contact as best she could. On one side of her was the faint but pervasive smell of her aunt’s perfume, and on the other, the slight whiff of Paul Chandon’s shaving lotion, and the overall smell of him — his clothing, the Gauloise he had been smoking — and his maleness.
But she bore the ride with good grace. What her aunt had said in the lounge was still very much with her. She kept thinking that yes, of course, the first time Louisa had seen what they were going to see tonight and which she had described so beautifully, had been with Henry, on their honeymoon in France.
It had meant very much to Louisa, who wanted it to mean very much to her, Iris, and no matter how she felt about the status quo, tonight she was going to do what she had promised her aunt … relax and enjoy it. Put all other thoughts aside, and simply let her “first time” at the Place du Tertre be unforgettable.
For herself, the first time could have been on her own wedding trip. Mark Pawling had been long forgotten, shelved along with other useless things. What remained of that deplorable little interlude was only the shock … and the hurt. The man himself was only a dim and sad memory in her mind.
Paul suddenly leaned forward and told the cab driver that they would stop here, and the vehicle came to a grinding halt.
“We’ll get out here,” Paul explained to them, “and walk the rest of the way.”
When they were standing on the sidewalk, he told Iris that he thought she might find this particular street of some interest.
It was a very hilly one, for it led up to the height of Montmartre, and on both sides of it were drygoods stores, one after another, with colorful fabrics displayed in their windows. It was very much like a street in the garment district of New York, and almost as congested.
“If you happened to be a girl who made her own clothes,” Paul told Iris, “you would find many bargains here.”
He looked down at her, smiling. “But I don’t think you make your own clothes.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t have the talent for
it”
After a while, as they ascended slowly, they came to the seemingly endless flight of steps that led up to the Butte.
“Shall we walk up?” Paul asked.
“Of course we’ll walk up. And when we leave we’ll walk down,” Louisa said gaily. “It’s all part of the ambience.”
“Then Madame, Mademoiselle …”
They started up the steep flight of stone steps. And after a while it became evident that there were houses clambering up the ascent. There was a wide space between the stairs and the houses, with rows of sheltering trees between, but there were occasional glimpses into rooms that were illumined by the sun that still lingered in early evening, and charming little domestic scenes within. A table laid for supper, a woman at a cookstove, a man reading a newspaper.
Three small boys, laden with gigantic loaves of bread like enormous cigars, came down the steps toward them, said shyly, “Bon soir,” and went on down past them.
“Those loaves of bread were almost as large as the children,” Iris marveled.
“Those are baguettes. For the evening meal. Baked fresh every day,” Paul said.
“Going up and down these steps must be a hazard in the wintertime,” Iris commented. “With snow and ice. I wouldn’t want to take my chances.”
“Oh, but it is great fun for children. Sometimes they can slide down, when the ice forms a solid sheet.”
He looked down at her. “Paris is, I sometimes think, at its best in the cold months. Then there are no tourists about at all, and Paris belongs to the Parisians again.”
“I suppose we are a bother,” she said tartly, and he laughed.
“Some are, but certainly not the company in which I find myself,” he said, and for a brief moment touched her arm.
Iris resisted an impulse to pull away from his touch, or look down pointedly at his hand on her. But remembering the promise to her aunt, she smiled nicely … and in any event, the hand didn’t rest there for very long.
At last they were at the top.
There, looking like all the countless pictures she had seen of it, was Sacré Coeur, in its field of green lawn and, as Aunt Louisa had said, as white as alabaster.
They walked the distance over to the parapet. “Now we’ll just stand here and wait,” Louisa said. “And Iris, darling, it is worth waiting for.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 42