Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (34 page)

She was a little short with Iris. “No,” she said. “I’ve no intention of doing anything like that. A little Paris night life wouldn’t hurt you, but it’s up to you. Don’t worry, I won’t twist your arm, Iris.”

Contrition showed in her niece’s face. “Forgive me, but it’s just that I must go at my own pace. For the moment, I’m content to drift with the tide.
Laissez faire,
you understand. Anyway, it’s you I want to be with.”

“Whatever you say. I just want you to enjoy your trip.”

“You are an understanding dear,” Iris said gratefully.

And when she left her aunt’s apartment, she was in a blissful daze. Europe this early fall … France … Paris …

“And how is your dear aunt today?” Mike asked her on her way out.

“Oh, so much better.”

“I was a bit worried about her,” he confided, “seeing as how I haven’t laid eyes on her in several days.”

“She’s … passed the crisis, as they say, Mike. Much improved. And thanks for worrying about her.”

“I like her you know. She’s a lady, a real lady.”

Yes, she was, Iris thought, as she walked on home. Her Aunt Louisa was truly to the manor born.

If Virginia Easton had ever envied her sister Louisa her good luck in snagging a husband who had made an early fortune in plastics, it had been only in periods of stress in her own household. There
had
been such periods, and at times she had despaired of providing the kind of college education she considered Iris’s due. Tears had been shed and hands had been wrung, but things had “come out all right,” and although Virginia had a host of friends and acquaintances, the person who meant the most to her (aside from her husband and daughter) was her sister Louisa.

What had prevented her from ever taking a penny from Louisa, or even borrowing, was the fact that the balance, she felt, must be kept even. Louisa had the money — and a great deal of it — while she, Virginia, had the child, the daughter fate had denied her sister. Louisa, after a second miscarriage, was unable to have children and it had been a great sorrow to her. One reason, perhaps, why she had so cherished and loved what she did have … her husband, who was twenty years older than herself.

And now, with Henry dead, the balance was uneven. In spite of her wealth, Louisa had, substantially, nothing while Virginia had everything … husband, daughter and for the first time in her life, some financial comfort. Virginia’s own world seemed suddenly blighted. With Louisa’s life shattered, her own was in chaos as well.

So when Iris came home that Saturday afternoon to announce that Aunt Louisa was immeasurably improved, and “picking up the pieces,” it was like a kind of rebirth. Suddenly the sun had its full strength again, the faces of her loved ones, husband George and daughter Iris, swam into her consciousness to dazzle and enchant her, and the new living room sofa that had seemed much too costly when it had been bought filled her with a joy and pleasure that set her to straightening its cushions about a dozen times.

“Beautiful thing,” she murmured to it. “You are worth every penny and I love you dearly.”

“And we’re to leave in September,” Iris told her.

“Isn’t that wonderful!”

Dad said, as they were having their supper, “I’m not disapproving, Iris. You’re in a way, like a child of her own. Perfectly proper for her to underwrite your vacation … at this particular sad time, anyway.”

“Iris wouldn’t do anything you’d disapprove of, George, so no need to take that
ensouffrance
tone.”

“Am I being taken down a peg or two?” he asked mildly.

His wife beamed at him. “Say anything you have a mind to. I feel very happy tonight.”

“I’m enormously fond of Louisa Collinge myself, and if I hadn’t been guarded carefully from a glimpse of her while we were courting, I might very well have married her myself.”

“She wouldn’t have had you.”

“Why?” he asked reasonably.

“Because it would have been over my dead body, and then you’d have gone to prison.”

“I was that fascinating?”

“Very likely just to me, and I would have slain to keep you.”

“In that case you’d have gone to prison,” Iris pointed out.

“And gladly so.”

“You’re really quite a pair,” Iris commented.

Her mother caught the wistfulness in her daughter’s voice, and thought, damn Mark Pawling for what he did to my child.

“So you’ll be going abroad, Iris,” George Easton said, and looked across at his wife. “You and I will have our turn one of these days,” he told her. “We had a rather hard row to hoe, but things are looking up.”

He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You’ve been a good and patient wife, and I love you very much.”

Iris, touched, thought that to have a man say something like that to you would be better than all the riches in the world, better than anything life could ever offer.

They left for Paris on the first week in September. Iris’s current beau drove them all out to the airport. His name was Jeffrey Hamm and Mother — who was as eager to see her daughter go to the altar and “settle down” as was Aunt Louisa — had said once, “If you and Jeff married, Iris, you’ll never be able to name your first-born after me, should it be a girl.”

“Why not?”

“Would you name a child Virginia Hamm?”

But she knew her daughter was no more serious about Jeff than she was about any of the men she dated nowadays.

Jeffrey was disturbed because Iris was to be away for such a chunk of time. “How about hurrying back?” he suggested, looking quite dejected.

“I haven’t even gone yet,” Iris said.

She liked him. He was decent, intelligent and quite a bit of fun. There had been others she had liked. But only one who had lit the flame in her.

Mark Pawling …

Was there to be only one in a lifetime?

“It won’t be all that long,” she said. “And I
will
miss you, Jeff.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said huskily.

Then their flight was called. Final good-byes were hastily exchanged, Mother saying, “You’ve got the Lomotil? Be sure to take it if there’s the slightest sign of an upset stomach.”

It was eight o’clock of a bright, still summery evening, with the sky still showing traces of a faint pink. Iris, boarding the plane, looked quickly back and, as she did, a burst of rosy brilliance flushed the heavens and then, just as swiftly, died down.

Like a salute, she thought, and then walked through the doors.

• • •

They arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport at seven in the morning.

First there was, upon awakening from a restful slumber which, in first class, was a little easier to come by than in second, an orange dawn. A strange, eerie glory that was unlike anything Iris had ever seen before. She gazed at it, fascinated and bemused, until the bizarre color faded and gave way to a pearly, early morning.

Her aunt was still asleep, her legs tucked up in her chair. Iris rose quietly and made her way to the washroom. She had taken her cosmetic case and was able to brush her teeth, wash her face and comb out her tousled hair.

When she went back down the aisle, some of the passengers were beginning to come alive, rousing themselves from their night’s doze, shifting stiffly in their seats. One woman groaned audibly, muttered something to her companion, a man, and struggled up. She walked down the aisle and disappeared into a washroom.

With a slight sigh, Louisa opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” Iris said.

“Good morning, dear. Did you sleep?”

“Yes, quite decently.”

“So did I. My word, you look refreshed. You’ve been to the washroom, haven’t you? Perfectly groomed and combed. And I, all sags and wrinkled panty hose.”

She got up. “I’ll go make some repairs of my own. I smell breakfast preparations, so I’d better be quick about it.”

While she was gone, Iris busied herself with her money converter. One franc was equal roughly to twenty cents. Therefore five francs was equal to a dollar, depending, of course, on the condition of the American dollar. She was starting out with a Quick Pack of forty dollars, which should give her a small start. For additional, there were two hundred dollars in traveler’s checks.

“Counting your wealth?” Louisa asked, returning to her seat.

“Like a miser. Look at all that loot.”

Her aunt laughed. “That wouldn’t get you very far.”

Breakfast came shortly after that, and shortly after
that
the loudspeaker crackled.

“This is your captain speaking. Landing will be in one half hour. The sky is clear above Paris, the temperature is 78 degrees. We hope you have enjoyed your flight. Thank you.”

Then it was repeated in French.
“Mesdames et Messieurs …”

Fifteen minutes later the overhead lights flashed for seatbelts to be fastened and cigarettes doused.

Then the plane started its slow descent. In no time at all the plains and valleys of France swam into view below them — neat rows of wheat and grain on the farmlands, miniature trees, squares of varying colors — and then the Seine, like a silver ribbon winding its way across the broad expanse.

They touched down with a velvety little bump and whooshed across the runway.

“Well,” Louisa said, “here we are.”

The sun, blazing in through the windows, was dazzling.

“Thank God for small favors,” Louisa said, unzipping her seat belt. “It’s a lovely, warm day. One’s first glimpse of Paris should always be on a lovely, warm day.”

She got up, smoothed her skirt, and stretched luxuriously. “We’re getting off to a good start,” she said and, with Iris following, made her way to the exit door.

That they were not staying at the Ritz was a welcome surprise to Iris. The Ritz, of course, would be gorged with American and English personalities of ancient vintage and horrid, rich Germans who would snap their fingers at waiters.

“Oh no,” Louisa said when Iris commented on it. “We never put up at the Ritz. Not the Paris Ritz, at any rate. We used to stay at the Bristol, but decided it had too much
side,
and one day we found a tiny little hotel just around the corner from the Ritz and have made it our Paris home ever since.”

She had pointed out notable landmarks on the ride from the airport, once they had passed through the dreary industrial districts that preceded their entry into Paris proper, and said suddenly, “Now we’re on the Rue St. Honoré, which leads into the Place Vendôme.”

The taxi driver made a right turn and they were at their destination, the Place Vendôme, of which Iris had seen many a picture postcard. No replica could do it justice, she thought; it was an almost austere, stately square of superb proportions, a sublime example of seventeenth century artistry in a city that offered many such architectural wonders.

At its center, a granite column on a monumental pedestal rose magisterially, topped by the statue of Napoleon Bonaparte.

“And here’s our little hotel,” Louisa said, as the cab’s driver pulled up, with a screech of tires, to the curb.

They climbed out of the taxi and the driver began pulling their luggage from the trunk of the vehicle. Then a fresh-faced young boy in uniform came out and stood waiting for the baggage.

Louisa opened her handbag, drew out some French notes and asked the young
portier,
with a pretty smile, to please pay their driver.

“And now let’s go inside and get ourselves settled,” she said to Iris, and swept through the opened glass doors.

Her niece smiled affectionately. Her aunt was every inch the seasoned traveler.

It was indeed a small hotel, with a small and discreetly correct lobby, and at the desk the concierge, exclaiming with what appeared to be a very sincere pleasure when Louisa greeted him, came out from behind his desk, said he was enchanted to see her once again this year, and started ordering the young boy who by this time had lugged in their suitcases, to be quick about it.

“Vite, vite,”
he cried, and dashed behind the desk again for the keys to their rooms.

“And be sure everything is in order,” he told the uniformed
portier.
“Madame is a favored client.”

“Pierre, this is my niece, Iris Easton,” Louisa said.

“Hello, Pierre.”

“Enchanté,
Mademoiselle. Welcome to Paris.”

“Merci,
Pierre.”

They surrendered their passports and followed the
portier
to the elevator, getting out at the fourth floor.

He opened a door halfway down the hall, stood aside, and they walked inside.

It was a suite, with a bedroom and bath for each, and in between a lovely little salon. The ceilings were high, as were the windows with their airy ninon curtains and handsome tapestry drapes. The furnishings were modified Louis Seize, and the room light and cheerful. There were good prints on the walls; the bull’s-eye mirror with its eagle mounting, Recamier sofa in front of which was a long coffee table and baroque wall sconces all added up to a very homey living room.

Louisa was busy separating the bags. “These are mine,” she told the young boy. “The others belong in my niece’s room.”

After a while everything was sorted out and Louisa bade Iris go and see if her room was shipshape. Her luggage deposited and at last alone, Iris stood in the middle of her room and looked about. The same tall, almost ceiling-high windows in here too, and the bathroom was larger than her room at home. Larger by far, and with a tub that could have accommodated someone six feet by seven.

She went back to the bedroom and sank down on the queen-sized bed, felt its incredible comfort, patted its two fat pillows, got up again and sat in each of the four small gilt chairs, went to the desk and pulled out the center drawer, where there was Hotel Vendôme stationery and then went to the windows.

The sun winked at her. She winked back. “Hello, Paris sun,” she said to it, and then regarded the telephone that sat on a bedside table.

“I wish I could call someone,” she said aloud.

Or better yet, she wished someone would call her. Right now, right this minute. Someone who would say, “Hello, pet, so you finally got here … Why not meet me at the Marignon for lunch? There’s so much to talk about …”