Moonlight Over Paris

by Jennifer Robson

  “I have always been sensible, and that is why I have no interest in marriage with some stranger who is indifferent to me. I was lucky to escape such a fate with Edward.”

  Her mother pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “How can you say you were lucky, when he all but ruined your life? If only you knew how it weighs upon me. What if something were to happen to your father? You know we cannot depend on your brother, for that wretched wife of his won’t wait five minutes before tossing us all out of the house. I don’t much care what happens to me, but you, my darling—what will become of you?”

  Helena took her mother’s hands and pressed them reassuringly between hers. “Listen to me: if the worst were to happen, and David’s vile wife were to throw us out on our ears, we would take my bequest from Grandmama, buy a little house, and live quite comfortably together. But that is not going to happen, not least because Papa is as healthy as an ox, and likely to remain so for many years.” She smiled at her mother, willing her to believe, and received a feeble nod in response.

  “I am going to France to live with Auntie A for a year, and to try to become an artist, and when the year is done I will think seriously about what I must do next. But I need my year first. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” her mother offered, her voice wobbly with tears, though she dried her eyes quickly enough. “Now, my dear: be honest with me. Are you well enough to travel?”

  “Not quite yet,” Helena answered truthfully. “Perhaps in a fortnight?”

  “Very well. Shall we see how you are at the end of next week? If you feel improved, I’ll have Papa’s secretary book passage for you to Paris.”

  “Aunt Agnes is already at her house in Antibes, though. Wouldn’t it be better if I took the Blue Train from Calais?”

  “That does make sense. Shall I have a tray sent up with your supper?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll go for a nice walk together. And we must see about getting you some pretty things for the seaside.”

  “Thank you, Mama. For everything, I mean.”

  As soon as the door closed behind her mother, Helena erupted from her chair and jumped up and down, taking great skips around the room, though it made her breathless and so unsteady on her feet that she had to sit again almost right away.

  She had done it.

  She would have her year in France, a year away from the whispers, stares, and malicious half-heard gossip that had blighted nearly every moment of the past five years. She would . . . her mind reeled at the possibilities. She would eat pastries and drink wine and wear short skirts and rouge, and she would sit in the sun and burn her nose, and not care what anyone thought of her.

  Best of all, she would go to school and meet people who knew nothing of her past, and to them she would simply be Helena Parr, an artist like themselves.

  Helena Parr. Artist. Merely thinking the words filled her with delight—and it reminded her of one task that simply couldn’t wait.

  Returning to her desk, she took out a sheet of notepaper and began to write.

  45, Wilton Crescent

  London, SW1

  England

  16 March 1924

  Dear Maître Czerny,

  Further to my earlier inquiry, I should like to reserve a place at your school for the September 1924 session for intermediate students. I shall send a bank draft for the required deposit under separate cover.

  Yours faithfully,

  Miss Helena Parr

  Chapter 2

  Strange to think she’d never been on a sleeper train before. She’d been to the south of France often enough, but her father detested rail journeys and invariably insisted they go by ship. As Helena was a poor sailor, she’d always dreaded the voyage to Marseille.

  But this—this was heavenly. Her first-class compartment on the train bleu—she supposed the name came from the cars’ midnight blue exteriors—was a tiny marvel of modern luxury, and rather than set down her valise and take off her coat she simply stood at its entrance and stared.

  It was scarcely more than two yards wide, and perhaps a little longer from door to window. Every vertical plane was covered in gleaming mahogany panels, their lacquer polished to a mirror finish. To her right was a plush banquette, not yet transformed into her bed for the night. She reached out and unlatched the curving door to her left. It revealed a sink with hot and cold taps, chrome-framed mirrors, and an electric light that switched on automatically.

  The train wouldn’t be leaving Calais for another half hour, so she might as well unpack before they started to move. With only a single case for the overnight journey, her trunk having been stowed in the baggage car, she didn’t have much to do. She shut and latched the door to her compartment, folded out the little table beside the window, and set out her valise. She’d brought a frock for dinner and another for her arrival in Antibes, neither of them much creased; these she hung on the back of the door. There was even a little rack for shoes at the bottom. Her nightgown and underclothes could remain in the case for now.

  Mama had wanted her to bring one of the maids, fearing that Helena wouldn’t be able to manage, but Helena had refused. Even before her illness, and the months of constant scrutiny by physicians and nursemaids, she’d rarely been left on her own. There had always been servants around, always, and though most of them were agreeable and friendly, and were usually quiet and unassuming, they were simply there.

  Here, though, there was no one to mind her, watch her, hover over her. She had twenty-four hours to herself to do as she pleased, to act as she liked, and to be anyone she chose to be. For the first time in her life she was wonderfully and blissfully alone, and she would savor every single, intoxicating minute.

  The train shuddered to life, lumbering out of the station with painful slowness, but before long they had left the coast behind and were rolling through the peaceful farmland of the Pas de Calais. Helena perched on the banquette and stared out the window, too excited to open her book, and watched as the countryside gave way to the outskirts of Amiens, their only stop before Paris. As they slowed to cross a low, rather rickety bridge, she glimpsed a faded sign that gave a name to the river flowing languidly below: la Somme.

  The Somme. Simply reading the name made her shiver. She was pretty certain the battles had been fought farther away, farther to the north—she could still remember, if hazily, the maps of the front lines that the newspapers had included whenever there was a new advance to report. And the war had come very close indeed to this ancient town, for hadn’t there been a Battle of Amiens toward the end?

  At the time, she’d read the newspapers compulsively, trying to make sense of it all, but understanding had proved elusive. What sense could be made of something so futile? The broken men at the hospital where she’d volunteered, their faces still so vivid in her mind’s eye, had been testament enough of the nature of war.

  The banquette was giving her a backache, so she determined to go in search of the ladies’ lounge car. She’d boarded at one end of the train, and had only passed through a single car of sleeping compartments, so any Pullman cars would be in the other direction.

  “May I be of assistance, Lady Helena?” Waiting in the corridor was the same steward who had escorted her onto the train earlier.

  “Yes, thank you. I was wondering if there might be a lounge—a Pullman car for ladies?”

  “I am so sorry, but not on this service. If you wish, you may certainly take a table in the restaurant. Allow me to show you the way. I believe afternoon tea is being served.”

  Suddenly, tea seemed like a very good idea. Only moments after taking her seat at a table for two, a smiling waiter set a tiered tray of fancies before her: wafer-thin cucumber sandwiches, toast triangles with crème fraîche and caviar, currant-studded scones, and petits fours that were almost too pretty to eat. A pot of tea, perfectly brewed, joined the sweets and savories, along with a trio of cut-crystal bowls that held lemon curd, clotted cream, and a mos
t unexpected delicacy: early strawberries at their peak of fragrant ripeness.

  With a speed that would have appalled her mother, Helena inhaled all of it, every last crumb, and was contemplating how best to scrape the last smear of clotted cream from its bowl when the waiter returned.

  “Bien fait, Lady Helena! I see that you enjoyed your afternoon tea very much.”

  “It was delicious, thank you. Would you mind very much if I sat here for a while?”

  “Not at all. As you can see, most of our passengers have yet to embark. Not until we arrive at the Gare de Lyon will we have a full house, as you say it.”

  “How long will that be, do you expect?”

  “Not long, not long. First we will stop at the Gare du Nord, and then we go to the Gare de Lyon. We will be there for about an hour. It will be a good time for you to—how do you say?—stretch your legs.”

  “I think I will, thank you.”

  She stayed at her table and watched the countryside give way to the growing suburbs of the great city, and then Paris was upon them, the train hemmed in by looming embankments and grim stone walls. They remained at the Gare du Nord for only a few minutes, just long enough to take on a few more passengers, before circling south to the Gare de Lyon.

  Helena returned to her compartment to fetch her hat and coat, gloves and reticule; she wouldn’t be leaving the train for long, but it was only sensible to have some ready cash on her person. According to her wristwatch, she had a little less than half an hour to walk up and down the platform before they departed for Lyon and points south.

  She recognized the smell right away. No one who had ever been to Paris would forget that heady mélange of coal dust, drains, frying onions, fresh bread, Turkish tobacco, and here and there a whiff of some exotic, expensive perfume. Perhaps she would buy a bottle of scent when she returned in the fall, something rich with gardenia or lilies. Never mind that she quite liked the verbena-scented cologne she’d always worn. Now that she was in France, she would do as Frenchwomen did.

  She walked from one end of the platform to the other, then, a little fearful of the train leaving without her, returned to her compartment and dressed for dinner. Her frock was new, in a streamlined style that was kind to her too-thin frame, and so short that Mama had been alarmed. But her mother had complete trust in Madame Rose, never mind that the seamstress hailed from Ripon and not the Rive Gauche, and Madame Rose had insisted that everyone, absolutely everyone, would be shortening their skirts for the season. The frock felt fashionable to Helena and was very pretty indeed, its turquoise silk chiffon adorned with a geometric pattern of gold and copper paillettes.

  She surveyed her appearance in the mirror next to the sink. She was still far too thin, though a steady diet of French bread and pastries would surely take care of that problem, and her hair made her look more like a young boy than a woman in her late twenties. On a woman with more striking features, or coloring that was more dramatic, such short hair would be memorable. On her, with her plain oval face and plain brown eyes, it looked rather pathetic.

  But there was nothing to be done; she hadn’t thought to pack Amalia’s pot of rouge in her overnight wash bag, and she hadn’t so much as a scarf to cover her shorn head, not unless she wished to pair her chiffon frock with the green felt cloche she’d just removed. So be it.

  The restaurant car was a little more than half full, most of the other diners unfamiliar. But then she recognized two women, sisters she’d known from the summer of her debut, and their failure to acknowledge her was as familiar as a cup of tea. They’d both been married for years, she recalled, with husbands who’d waited out the war in reserve battalions that never crossed the Channel. They had children and homes of their own and everything she’d once thought she, too, would have.

  Although there were two empty places at their table, the sisters didn’t beckon her over, didn’t wave in her direction, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow to indicate they’d seen her. Women like that never did. It wasn’t because they disliked her, for they barely knew her. But they feared being seen with her, or anywhere near her, and so it was easier to pretend she was invisible.

  The waiter, the same friendly man as earlier, greeted her with a wide smile and showed her to a table for two. She would have a cocktail, something terribly strong, and it would go straight to her head and she wouldn’t care what anyone thought of her. “Do you serve American cocktails?” she asked.

  “But of course. Do you prefer a beverage prepared with gin, with rum, or with Scotch whisky?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “I’ve never had one before.”

  “In that event, I advise a moderate approach. May I suggest a sidecar? It is made of Cointreau, brandy, and lemon juice.”

  “It sounds delicious.”

  She would drink it down, every last drop, no matter if it tasted like kerosene straight from a lamp. The waiter returned several minutes later, a single glass on his silver tray, and set the drink before her with a flourish.

  “À votre santé,” she said, and took a large sip of the cocktail. It tasted bright and citrusy, but that first impression was quickly overlaid by a sensation of searing heat as the brandy made its presence known. Stifling the urge to cough, she took another sip, and another, and decided she liked it.

  “Shall I allow you a few moments to look at the bill of fare?” the waiter asked.

  “I’m not terribly hungry,” she confessed. “Perhaps some soup to begin, and then some fish—what do you have tonight?”

  “We have sole meunière with new potatoes and white asparagus.”

  “Perfect. No pudding; just that. And I should very much like another one of those cocktails.”

  Chapter 3

  “Good morning, Lady Helena, and welcome to the south of France. May I bring in your petit déjeuner?”

  She’d slept well, lulled by the soporific effects of the two sidecars she’d imbibed and the cradling rhythm of the train, only vaguely aware of the stops it had made during the night. Apart from a mild headache, she felt quite well, and more than ready for a spot of breakfast.

  “One moment,” she called out, reaching for her robe. She unlatched the door and stood aside to let the steward into her compartment. Moving as gracefully as Nijinsky himself, he set out her breakfast tray and prepared a bowl of café au lait.

  “We will be leaving Marseille shortly, my lady. You are disembarking at Antibes, yes?”

  “I am, thank you. How long do I have?”

  “It is two hours to St.-Raphäel, and then another hour to Juan-les-Pins. The station for Antibes comes one quarter of an hour later.”

  The train’s modern conveniences did not extend to WCs in each compartment, alas, so Helena dressed quickly and hurried to the toilet cubicle at the end of the car. It, too, was decorated in sumptuous style, with mosaic floors that might have been plundered from a Roman villa. Back in her compartment, she perched at the edge of her bunk and made short work of her breakfast: two croissants, which she spread with butter and raspberry jam, and washed down with the still-scalding café au lait.

  The steward had brought two newspapers with her breakfast. The first, a day-old copy of the Times, she had read at her hotel in Calais. The other was a European edition of the Chicago Tribune. It stretched to only eight pages in total, and was a curious mix of news about American politicians and criminals, descriptions of lunches and gala dinners at dull-sounding places like the Board of Trade, and mystifying tables of statistics that appeared to relate to the sport of baseball.

  Soon they were on the move again, heading east under a radiant turquoise sky. Thinking to freshen the air, Helena cranked down her window a scant inch, but the breeze was so warm and fragrant that she quickly lowered the pane to its full extent and let the wind rush into the compartment. It smelled of pine trees and sunshine and salt air, without so much as a wisp of locomotive exhaust, and felt like heaven on her face.

  The steward came by once more, to take her tray and fo
ld away her bunk, and as soon as he was done she returned to her perch by the window. They had turned south, or so it seemed from the angle of the midmorning sun, and presently he called out for St.-Raphäel.

  She packed the last of her things, even rolling up her coat and stuffing it into her valise. It would look ridiculous with her linen frock and straw cloche hat, she reasoned, and Aunt Agnes wouldn’t fuss over her catching cold as Mama would have done.

  They halted in Juan-les-Pins, its modest station dwarfed by gargantuan palm trees, and then, only minutes later, the steward called for Antibes. As soon as the train had shuddered to a halt he took Helena’s valise, helped her down the steps, and thanked her profusely when she tipped him with some paper francs from her handbag. She really ought to check the exchange rate; for all she knew, she had just handed over most of her monthly allowance.

  “Helena! Oh, Helena darling!”

  “Auntie A!”

  The last time she’d seen her aunt, a little more than two years ago, had been at the memorial service for Agnes’s husband, a Russian grand duke who had died under tragic circumstances. They had all been dressed in deepest black, though no one apart from Agnes had ever met the man—she’d married him only a few months before his airplane had crashed en route to Tangiers. Family was family, however, so they had observed the proprieties and attended a terribly baroque service at a Russian Orthodox church near Victoria Station, and afterward Agnes had drunk an astonishing amount of vodka with Dimitri’s Russian friends and declared that her life was over.

  Evidently she had overcome the worst of her grief since then, for she was the picture of happiness as she swept her niece into a feathery embrace. It was an odd sensation, one that made sense once Helena realized that the neckline and cuffs of Agnes’s chartreuse chiffon frock were trimmed with dyed-to-match marabou.

  “You look wonderful,” she said truthfully. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”