If the Wright Brothers had been strangled in their cradles, if the descendants of George III still reigned over the New World and the descendants of Louis XIV held sway over France, it would have made no difference to the conversation around that civilized, candlelit board. But if champagne grapes were no longer growing in Champagne, if Mozart and Gershwin had never lived, if horses were not bred to swiftness and strength, if Bloomsbury had never bloomed, or Fred Astaire not bought his first pair of tap shoes, they would have had to find other things to talk about.
As the leisurely meal ended, Lord Gerald disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a Jeroboam of Dom Perignon. He opened the bottle almost as expertly as Freddy remembered her grandfather doing, and served them all, with Tony’s help.
“This is a very special toast,” he said. “Today Miss Marie-Frédérique de Lancel—Freddy to her friends—has reached a most interesting age. Alexander Pope wrote of ‘the brisk minor’ who ‘pants for twenty-one’ … Samuel Johnson spoke of ‘towering in the confidence of twenty-one’ … Thackeray wrote of ‘the brave days when I was twenty-one.’ Everyone else in this room is past that magical age, perhaps by only a few months, like you, Jane, or by many years, like me, but no matter. The important thing is that Freddy need no longer pant for twenty-one—she is living in brave days, and she deserves all the joy of them. May the joy be great and may it grow with every year that passes. To Freddy!”
Freddy sat blushing while they all drank her health. Her blush deepened when Lady Penelope rang the bell and the young boy, who had obviously been just behind the kitchen door, walked out with several gaily wrapped boxes and placed them in front of her.
“Oh no,” she protested. “You’ve all been so good to me already. That fantastic bath was my present.”
“Nonsense, my dear. These are just improvised—we couldn’t get to the stores, but you have to have souvenirs of such an important occasion,” Lady Penelope said.
“Go on, Freddy, open them,” Jane echoed eagerly.
Lady Penelope’s present was a thick, soft, sky-blue turtleneck sweater that she’d knitted herself and that only Jane knew had been intended for her daughter. Lord Gerald had contributed a monogrammed silver flask that he always took with him when he hunted, and a bottle of precious malt whiskey to fill it. “Carry it at all times,” he explained, “in case of shipwreck or being charged by a rogue elephant.” Jane herself had found, in her Ali Baba closet, a black chiffon and lace nightgown she had decided was too divinely indecent to be worn except for a special occasion, which had inexplicably failed to present itself before she joined up. “Believe it or not, pet, you’ll find this will come in handy, now that you’re old enough,” she whispered to Freddy.
Freddy was wise enough not to dare to remember the last time she had been so happy.
It was hours after midnight before she finally found herself in bed. Officially, it was no longer her birthday, but a gala spirit still fizzed like wine in her blood, and Freddy was far too keyed up to sleep. Nor did she want to. This jubilation of emotion was too welcome to allow it to taper off into mere dreams. She lay under the covers with her eyes wide open in the darkness of the room, wearing her black chiffon nightgown, the blue sweater and a pair of woolen socks, smiling up at the unseen ceiling.
A light tap sounded on her door. Jane, she thought, wanting a postmortem chat about the evening. “Come in,” Freddy called, and the door opened to reveal Tony, carrying a candle in a short candlestick. By its flickering light Freddy could see that he was still dressed in the trousers and shirt of his dinner clothes, but a cardigan had replaced his jacket. He didn’t enter the room, but stood in the doorway.
“I brought you a birthday present,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going to be your birthday today, and I didn’t know you were going to be here, so I wasn’t prepared at dinner … perhaps you’d like it?”
“Could it wait until tomorrow morning?” Freddy suggested.
“It’s a strictly nighttime present.” He held out an oblong object tied up in many ribbons with Christmas tree ornamerits attached here and there, so that there was no way to guess what it was. “No good in the morning.”
“Then I guess I’d better have it now.”
“That’s what I thought … much better right away.” He walked over to her bed and put the sparkling object into Freddy’s hands. It was very warm and it moved when she touched it.
“My God …” she gasped. “What …?”
“It’s my hot-water bottle,” he explained, pleased with her surprise. “I filled it two minutes ago. It was the wrapping that took a long time.”
“Oh, Tony … not your very own hot-water bottle? I can’t possibly deprive you of it.”
“I do have a strong sentimental attachment to the thing … we’ve been together through many long cold nights … but now it wants to belong to you. I’ll have to find another one and tame it … shouldn’t be too hard to do. They generally come when you whistle. Please keep it.”
“If you’re sure—I’d love it. And I’ll think of you every night when I fill it. Now I’m going to sleep. Good night, Tony.”
“Good night, Freddy,” he said, taking a chair, placing it next to her bed, putting the candle on the floor and sitting down. “There was just one other thing … since you’re not actually asleep yet … if I might have a word with you …”
“Only a word,” she said, pulling the clumsy wrappings from the hot-water bottle and putting it next to her, under the blankets she pulled tightly up under her chin.
“You see, I’ve just been transferred, made commander of a new squadron, of a bunch of chaps I’ve never met before, chaps … well, I thought you could explain how I should get along with these chaps.”
“Explain to an RAF commander how he can ‘get along’ with his pilots? Ha! Good night, Tony.”
“They’re Yanks, the Eagle Squadron, been over here since September, but they haven’t seen much action yet … there was nobody to train these glamour boys during the Battle of Britain … they’ve been standing by since the bad weather started, and their squadron commander’s gone sick … anyway, these blighters are my squadron now and I thought that you, being a Yank, more or less, could advise me how to get off on the right foot. I’m completely cheesed as how to approach them. I feel rather dim about it … a bunch of foreign types, these chaps, you can understand why I need help.”
“Just call them ‘guys’ instead of chaps’ or ‘blighters’ or ‘glamour boys’ or ‘foreign types’ and you’ll do fine. Good night, Tony.”
“Guys? That seems awfully rude. You’re sure, Freddy?”
“Guys. Or ‘fellows,’ or ‘boys,’ or gang, as in ‘hey, gang, let’s put on a show’—that should be enough linguistic adaptation. For everything else, count on them to pick up RAF slang or teach you theirs. Good night, Tony.”
“I’m very grateful, Freddy. You’ve made me feel a lot more secure.” He got up from his chair and sat on the edge of her bed. “Awfully good of you to take the time, Freddy.”
“Always glad to help. Good night, Tony.”
“Good night, Freddy,” he said as he leaned over and kissed her full on her laughing mouth. “Oh, Freddy, you darling, beautiful Freddy, we’d better try that again, I believe,” he murmured before he took her in his arms and kissed her over and over, both of them dangerously athirst for each other’s closeness, each of them filled with an imperative impulse to touch, to hold, to grasp, that had been inevitable since Freddy had entered the library earlier that night.
They were as surprised by the long-pent-up explosion of kisses as if they hadn’t been marvelously inescapable, a supreme necessity, postponed to the point of pain. Tony groaned out loud, transported by felicity, as he lay on top of the blankets and wrapped his arms around Freddy’s sweater so that he could hold her pressed to his chest. For long, delicious minutes they surrendered to the rapturous discoveries of wordless kissing, separated by so many layers of wool that it might have been a
bundling board, only able to catch glimpses of each other by the small light of the candle on the floor.
“Tony … are you comfortable?” Freddy whispered at last.
“Not frightfully …”
“You could … well, take off your shoes.”
“They’re off.”
“Your sweater … your shirt … your trousers …”
“But then I’d freeze.”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
“You’re sure? I couldn’t … I shouldn’t … oh, darling, if I get into this bed …”
“Are you positive you’re a pilot?” she asked artfully, finally understanding that he was too much of a gentleman to make love to her under his own roof without unmistakable encouragement.
“Quite positive.”
“Then stop dithering around like a deadbeat,” she said, using the RAF term for non-flying personnel.
As she spoke, the candle that Tony had put on the floor went out, plunging them into total blackness. “Blast!” Tony muttered as he groped for it. His movement was so eager that he heard the candlestick fly to a far corner of the room. He tried to find another candle on Freddy’s night table and only succeeded in toppling over the lamp by her bed, which fell with a loud crash and the sound of broken glass. “Oh shit,” he muttered, standing up carefully and ripping off his clothes as quickly as possible, letting them fall to the floor. Naked, he jumped hastily into Freddy’s bed and reached out for her.
“OUCH!” she yelped as their foreheads cracked together loudly.
“Did that hurt?” he asked anxiously.
“Damn right it did—what about you?”
“I think I broke my nose. Here, feel it—what do you think—no, damn it, that’s my ear.”
“I don’t want to feel your nose, I might put out your eye,” Freddy protested.
“Don’t you have any night vision?” he grumbled, trying to pull off her sweater.
“You’re tearing my nightgown! Watch it! Oh, you brute, let go of me! You ripped a shoulder strap. And take your knee out of my stomach.”
“I think that’s my elbow.”
“What are you doing down there? Come back up here right away! You’re too tall …”
“Don’t you have a match?” Tony begged, his neck caught under Freddy’s armpit. She crumpled with laughter.
“Tony! Lie still! I know where I am! I’ll take my clothes off, and if you don’t move for a minute I’ll feel around and sort you out.”
“O.K.” He lay motionless as she pulled her sweater off over her head and slithered out of her nightgown and pushed off her socks, listening to the sounds each piece of clothing made as she tossed them aside. Then he submitted to her questioning, warmly triumphant hands as he breathed the air in the fragrant cave under the blankets.
“Good lord, Squadron Leader, what have we here? Oh, it’s the hot water bottle—for a minute I was worried—now what could this be?”
“Don’t—touch—that—yet.”
“Why not?” Freddy asked, all innocence. “It feels … friendly.”
“Let—it—go,” he implored.
“Why? Don’t you know there’s a war on? Waste not, want not.” She flung one long leg over his hip in a prodigal, irresistible movement. “What do you know?” Freddy whispered. “I happen to have just the place for it.”
There was only broken sleep for Freddy or Tony that midwinter night, as they dozed off together to wake and discover that their need had grown again. They found all the warmest and most private places of each other’s bodies, a pair of patient, dedicated explorers with fingertips and tongues and nostrils for eyes. They murmured bits of praise and gratitude to each other and fell asleep again, waking disoriented, until they had touched enough to establish new boundaries, to cross, new rules to break. Their last sleep seemed to Tony to have lasted a long time, and he forced himself to get out of bed and pull the blackout curtains aside an inch. He jumped back from the window and dove under the blankets.
“Blast!”
“What’s wrong?” Freddy asked, alarmed.
“The kids … they’re all right outside … they’ve just finished making a snowman under your window, and it wasn’t there yesterday. Christ knows what time it is.”
“Look at your watch, darling.”
“I left it in my room last night.”
“Well, they’ll just think we slept late.”
“Not Jane,” he said with sure knowledge.
“I don’t care,” Freddy declared. “Kiss me, you fool.”
“I want them all to know! I’m going to tell them!” he said exultantly.
“No! Don’t you dare!”
“What’s your parents’ address in London?” Tony demanded.
“What are you going to do, ring them up and tell them you’ve just spent the night with me?” Freddy asked, suddenly alarmed. He seemed capable of anything.
“I’ll be there next week. I want to go and see your father.”
“Why on earth …?”
“To inform him of my intentions, of course. To ask his permission,” Tony said with as much dignity as anyone in his rumpled, sticky condition could muster.
“My God,” Freddy said softly, visualizing the scene. “I don’t think that’s a good idea … it might … startle him.”
“But I intend to marry you. I mean, you’re aware of that, I assume. So I have to talk to him.”
“Don’t you have to talk to me first?”
“I will. All in good time. But first, surely, I have to present myself. Will he mind dreadfully that I don’t speak much French?”
“No,” giggled Freddy, “I shouldn’t think so. You really mean to … ask for permission to … ah … pursue me?”
“Certainly. Unless you object.”
“Not strenuously, no. I don’t have the strength.”
“So I’ll go see him, all right?”
“Now that I think about it … he does deserve a nice surprise after all these years.”
“What does that mean, Freddy, darling?”
“Perhaps one day I’ll tell you. Or perhaps I won’t.”
“One day you’ll tell me everything,” he said in a confident tone.
“Only after a long and persistent courtship. And possibly not even then. I’m afraid that recent events, Antony, may have led you to take me for granted.”
“Oh, Freddy, I do adore you—absolutely and forever. Do you love me?”
“A little.”
“Not more than that?”
“Much more than that.”
“How much more?” he demanded greedily.
“I’d tell you … but the hot-water bottle’s leaking.”
17
DELPHINE stood dazed in the doorway of the apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, listening to Armand’s footsteps as he descended the stairs. A minute ago she had been encircled by his arms, still almost protected, still half-shielded by the bulwark of his love, even as the truth of his departure crept toward her faltering heart. Now she was truly alone, for in the instant of leaving, he had become just one among millions of Frenchmen who had left their homes for an unforeseeable period, ordered to rejoin their military units in the general mobilization of September second, 1939. For a few desolate, disbelieving hours, too sad to weep, she wandered numbly about the apartment, picking out melodies on the piano, and huddled under the plaid coverlet, trying, without success, to pretend that at any moment that she would hear him climbing back up the stairs, hear his key in the lock, see him enter the room.
The moment Armand left, Delphine’s ability to fend off reality vanished. For many months it had sustained her, a balancing act, as reliable as if she had spent her life as a performer on the high wire. However, her equilibrium had depended on his presence, for she had created it to fend off a day she had refused to believe would come.
Now, her sense of self-preservation came to her rescue and Delphine recognized that it was time for her to return to her little fortress on the
Villa Mozart, time to take stock of the new situation, amid whatever weapons of possession and position she had amassed in the years before she met the only man she ever loved.
The first thing she did, after she had locked her bedroom door in her pink and turquoise Victorian house, was to go to her desk, unlock the drawer and open her strongbox. There, amid other documents and the many velvet cases that held her collection of jewels, lay her blue French passport and her green-covered American passport. Years earlier, when it became apparent that their stay in Los Angeles was to be a long one, Paul de Lancel had taken the steps to ensure that both his daughters would have dual French and American citizenship. Although they had been born French, of French parents, they had always lived outside of France, and as a diplomat, he had never underestimated the power of an American passport.
She had a decision to make, Delphine understood, as she balanced her two passports on her palms. She could leave Europe, as most Americans in Paris were hurrying to do, even as she sat there, and go home to neutral America. Within a short time, perhaps in less than two weeks, she would find herself back in Los Angeles. She would stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel—she could call and reserve a suite just by picking up the phone on her desk. She played with the idea for a moment, clearly visualizing herself ordering a Cobb salad at the Hollywood Brown Derby, lunching with an agent, discussing a choice of movie scripts. Nothing about the scene was in any way implausible or the product of wishful thinking. On the contrary, every detail was practical, feasible, attainable, needing only a visit to a ticket office to make it come true. Yet she rejected this vision of the future with every one of her deepest emotions, even as she saw it so clearly in her mind’s eye.
What was her alternative if she didn’t buy that steamship ticket? The French film industry had shut down tight, like most civilian businesses, on the day of the mobilization. Actors, technicians and crews had all disappeared, just like Armand. Twenty films in the middle of production had been closed down. She had no job, no one depended on her, and she had no useful function in a country at war.
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