Katherine Keenum (12 page)

Grandcourt drummed the keys.

“Tonight on the Champs-Élysées, as I am coming here, the street musicians are out in force. A tune sounds familiar—and there he is, our mendicant, with a companion to play the accordion, and two pretty girls to dance while he himself hawks a stack of freshly printed sheets.
Oui!
He put the tune up to bid, he tells me, sold it for a thousand francs, and retained the rights to sell it on the street. I have it here. He cost me a franc, after all, and another for his autograph.”

From inside his jacket, Maestro Grandcourt produced a rolled-up sheet of paper and carried it over to present to Mrs. Renick. Beaming, she clasped it to her bosom, while he sat down in the seat on the other side of her from Sophie—which, until a moment before, had been occupied by Effie. Long years of living in Maude Hendrick’s company had taught Effie the skill of vacating a seat before anyone else noticed it was needed.

*   *   *

“Well, I call that a treat!” said Effie, joining Edward, Carl, and Jeanette behind the sofa. “You must sketch M. Grandcourt at the piano, Jeanette, for a letter home.”

“Do you draw, Miss Palmer?” asked Carl, politely.

“Yes, I . . .”

“Oh, Jeanette is studying with the best teachers in Paris. At Julian’s Academy!”

“A school for lady artists?” grinned Carl.

“For artists.” Jeanette was annoyed, not only with Cousin Effie, but with Carl for putting her off on the wrong foot.

“The Académie Julian is a proprietary school, Carl,” said Edward. “It has gained quite an international reputation.”

“You know it, then, Dr. Murer?” asked Jeanette, turning gratefully to this reserved gentleman, whose face, despite darker hair and a trim beard, bore a family resemblance to his nephew’s.

“I’ve only read about it. I envy you the opportunity.”

“I’m going to be studying, too,” said Carl, “though nothing so fancy as art. Vats of chemicals and modern manufacturing. Lord, and all in German!”

He plunged into a comic account of his upcoming year. At first, Jeanette tried to inject the occasional remark to establish herself as a serious student, too, but made little dent. She fell back on laughing at his jokes, despising him as conceited, and trying to hold herself at the angle that would show her at her prettiest. It would serve him right to know that the lines and shadows in his uncle’s face piqued far more interest than his fatuous good looks.

*   *   *

“Mr. and Mrs. Monroe. Miss Monroe. Miss Rose and Master David.”

Hastings announced the arrival of the last guests. Mr. Monroe was dressed
de rigueur
in black evening clothes; but with his sandy gray hair and light eyes, he appeared as opalescent as the rest of his family. His wife was decked out in pearls; the older daughter was borne before them as if on display. Lila Monroe was an auroral vision of pale gold chiffon and evanescent pink silk, of bare shoulders rice-powder white, and blond hair held softly in place by mother-of-pearl combs. The quiet set of her mouth and her languid, unseeing gaze—it took her half a beat to meet the eyes of anyone to whom she was introduced—gave her the stillness of something costly and untouched. She could afford to be remote because no one in the room, in any room, could ever doubt her worth.

No one, perhaps, except Eddie Murer. At fourteen, he was still immune to ingénues of seventeen. Seeing his brother Carl’s entranced expression, Eddie rolled his eyes. Jeanette wanted to annex him immediately. If she couldn’t hide behind the curtains or simply go home, she wished she could at least join the children’s table—though that would put her with David and Rose, two other inhuman exhalations wafting across the room. The best she could do was slip behind Cousin Effie to hide. A moment ago, she had been feeling superior to Carl; now he was a prize that she had just lost. Edward was touched more by the dismay in Miss Palmer’s face than attracted by the bisque-china loveliness that had inspired her jealousy and captivated his gaping nephew.

To Carl’s credit, until he was struck dumb by Lila’s entrance, he really had been doing his best to amuse Miss Pendergrast and Miss Palmer. He knew it would please his mother to see him socially at ease; and the chance to talk endlessly about himself, though he would never have put it that way, made him expand with good feeling. Now it fell to Edward to pick up the slack; they could not all stand staring mutely while Cornelia greeted her new guests. “Have you been to the World’s Fair yet, Miss Pendergrast?” he asked.

“Well, no—”

“I want to see the art exhibitions,” said Jeanette, turning a brave face to him (and her back on Miss Monroe). It was rude, she knew, to interrupt when the question was put to Effie, but she was desperate and couldn’t bear that dithering, abashed simper of Cousin Effie’s just now.

“My younger nephew, Eddie, would tell you the sculpture of a rhinoceros rearing up at the entrance to the Trocadéro was the best thing at the fair. It’s life-sized and lifelike, too—in fact, livelier than the real feller at the zoo, who just snoozes in his cage.”

“Did you see the exotic displays, like the Japanese and the Persians?” asked Effie, eagerly.

“Not yet. Perhaps—Carl?”

To his astonishment, Edward realized he had been about to propose getting up a party, but by then Carl had sidled away to be introduced to the beauteous Lila. Edward was saved from himself by Hastings, who, having notified the kitchen that the last guests had arrived, came in to announce that dinner was ready.

*   *   *

Edward was not sorry to find himself seated between comfortable Sophie and harmless Miss Pendergrast. Across heaps of fruit, flowers, and candles down the length of the table, he could watch the more entertaining side: Mrs. Monroe, Grandcourt, Miss Palmer, Carl, and pretty Miss Monroe. It was quite clear that Carl would devote the entire evening to Miss Monroe if allowed; but when Cornelia turned from Theodore on her right to Mr. Monroe on her left, Lila turned, too, obedient to convention or to a silent command from her father. Back and forth the conversation turned in ten-minute intervals, through course after course. After julienne soup came a choice of
filets de soles à la Normandie
or lobster rissoles. A menu card at each place gave the more inexperienced the chance to rehearse their decision before flawlessly trained footmen on each side of the table presented platters. The second time Carl was forced to turn to Jeanette, she was smiling animatedly and began recounting a story Grandcourt had just told her. Carl, who was committing to memory the next thing he wanted to say to Miss Monroe, missed the premise and had to ask her to start over. The story fell flat for both of them. They both absentmindedly tore at their rolls, leaving heaps of crumbs on the tablecloth.

“Bread crumbs make good erasers,” said Jeanette.

Carl stared at her blankly.

“For pencil or charcoal. They don’t damage the surface of paper.”

What on earth was she talking about?

“Most of us use india rubber,” she went on, desperately. “It’s cleaner and less wasteful of the good bread, as Mr. Ruskin would say.”

Oh, thought Carl, artists. “You could use the bread when you’re sketching in the park and feed the pigeons at the same time.” He grinned smugly, thinking he had made a brilliant comeback.

A third course (
filets de boeuf à la jardinière
or ham and peas), then ducklings with compote of oranges or
soufflé à la vanille
. Carl was slow to turn toward Jeanette. His natural amiability had been winning over Lila, who rewarded him by opening up delicately. With an abstracted look of contentment, Carl reached forward to break off a bunch of grapes to go with his duckling. Jeanette picked up the gold grape shears laid for that purpose and expertly snipped first a cluster, then a single, thick-skinned grape, which she proceeded to peel.

“So that’s what those little scissors are for!” said Carl. “You probably even know what to do with the seeds.”

Jeanette ate the grape and discreetly disposed of the seeds into a corner of her fist in the correct manner. He smiled appreciatively. “Are grapes a regular part of the dinner table in
Circleville
?” he teased.

“At Vassar College,” said Jeanette, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

He looked at her quizzically as he tried to work something out. “I thought Vassar was for brains, not a finishing school.” Jeanette reddened. Carl frowned. “And if you go to Vassar,” he said, slowly, “what are you doing here?”

“I
went
to Vassar; I don’t any more.” Carl, who had perhaps drunk more wine than was good for him, failed to pick up the warning signs in her face and voice. He waited for her to say more. Blinking back tears of frustration and shame, Jeanette bit the inside of her lip. Couldn’t he see that if she had graduated, she would have said so, and no other explanation—bad grades, lack of money, family obligations—was any of his business? A sudden squall of angry pride overtook her. “You are sitting next to a very dangerous woman, Mr. Murer. I was expelled.”

“Expelled!” Carl’s disbelieving exclamation caused a startled silence to fall over the room.

Before she could stop herself, Jeanette icily dropped the explanation: “For helping my roommate elope.”

“Gardiner McLeod’s daughter,” squeaked Effie, in consternation, to no one in particular.

Everyone slipped glances at everyone else.

“Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving old sinner,” snorted Mr. Monroe, at last.

“Look, Miss Palmer, I’m sorry.” Carl was abashed by what he had precipitated.

Cornelia felt her dinner party disintegrating and appealed mutely across the table to Hippolyte Grandcourt. He who had never failed a hostess yet, nor disappointed an audience, stepped into the breach. He was wise enough to pick up the offending term lightly.

“When I was young,” he said to the company at large, “there was a composer named Dutoit. A talented man at melody, full of grandiose ambitions. He took it into his head to write, as his magnum opus, an opera based on Cervantes’ divine
Don Quixote
. For the libretto, he chose the episode in which the beautiful Moorish maiden, Zoraida, has eloped with a Christian galley slave. Now, the soprano he had in mind . . .”

Off went Grandcourt, telling his tale in a voice that projected the whole length of the table while retaining an easy, conversational tone. As he elicited a final, general laugh, he met Cornelia’s worshipful eye and released the other dinner guests to focus all his attention on Jeanette. With a blithe comment to Theodore, Cornelia restarted conversation at her end of the table. Lila turned to Carl, her eyes sparkling with suppressed, malicious glee. Mrs. Monroe nervously returned to Mr. Renick, Sophie to Edward. To the delight of Lila and Carl, Mrs. Renick held the pattern longer than was conventional. During ices, however, seeing that she must rescue Effie from Mr. Monroe, who was trying to worm out more of the scandal, Cornelia changed partners again. Edward could now attend to Miss Pendergrast with the soothing demeanor he brought to his patients, and Carl gamely tried to recoup his standing as a good fellow, if not with Miss Palmer, then at least in his own eyes. “You can probably tell me which are the best pictures to see at the Louvre,” he said.

Grandcourt’s ministrations had restored Jeanette’s equanimity, but not to the point that she could pretend nothing had happened. “The
Mona Lisa
is universally admired,” she replied in such chilly tones that Carl made no further attempt to converse. They both knew their only real obligation was to make no further trouble. This was best accomplished by the slow, wordless eating of an excellent black currant sorbet.

*   *   *

At the end of the evening, while the guests were headed downstairs to their carriages, Cornelia put a hand on Edward’s sleeve to hold him back.

“Edward, dearest,” she said, with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye, “could I ask you to do me a favor? We had already arranged for Albert, our driver, to take Miss Pendergrast and Miss Palmer home, but after the poor girl’s embarrassment at dinner, a little additional chivalry seems called for. Would you accompany them, there’s a dear? Albert can then take you on to your hotel or anywhere else you want to go.”

Edward was oddly pleased, both to be asked and to be able to show a little kindness. “It would be my privilege, Cornelia.”

“Good, then make it look like it was your own idea.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The World’s Fair

I
n the hall below, Jeanette and Effie were just leaving. “May I see you safely to your door, Miss Pendergrast?” asked Edward, as he caught up with them.

“Oh, no need, Dr. Murer,” said Effie. “Mrs. Renick has ordered her carriage for us. That is . . . I mean . . .” She slid into confusion as it dawned on her that the offer had been made, not as a practical matter, but as a compliment.

Edward was accustomed to helping customers out of self-imposed difficulties. “It would be my very great pleasure,” he said, gravely.

After her embarrassment at dinner and the need to keep up appearances for the rest of the evening, Jeanette wanted only to escape home and die, but she tried to stand a little straighter. Silently she begged Cousin Effie please, please to quit dithering.

“Why, I call that handsome of you, Dr. Murer!” said Effie, bashfully.

By now, the other Murers had assembled in a staring knot behind them.

“I’ll meet you at the Ambassadeurs,” said Edward. Before they had a chance to ask questions or propose alternative plans, he was helping Jeanette and Effie into the carriage.

Inside, Edward leaned back into the shadows, almost invisible in his black clothes and top hat. Jeanette was glad of the covering darkness, glad not to have to meet his eye—although, she thought bitterly, his thin reserved face contrasted favorably to that horrid Carl’s beefy father or pudding-faced Mr. Monroe. Edward sensed energy in the two forms opposite him. Miss Palmer was tense, pulled back against the seat. Miss Pendergrast was perky, poised on its edge; and once her tongue was loosened by excitement, she chattered. Eventually, with some kind prompting, Miss Palmer was brought into the conversation to recount one of M. Grandcourt’s anecdotes. It involved Rodolphe Julian’s exploits as a wrestler in a circus while he was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, and her voice eased in the telling. By the time the carriage turned onto the Rue Jacob, Edward had decided to act on his earlier impulse.

“Miss Pendergrast, would you and Miss Palmer do me the honor of joining me tomorrow on an excursion to the World’s Fair? It’s crowded on Sunday; but, Miss Palmer, you are busy on weekdays, and—”

Effie squeaked. Jeanette, unable to bear her havering, spoke out of turn. “That’s very kind of you, Dr. Murer. Thank you very much.”

“It’s ridiculous that we haven’t gone yet!” chimed in Effie.

“Then that’s settled. If you prefer to attend divine services in the morning, we can make it an afternoon visit only, but there’s plenty to do all day; I’d be happy to pick you up after breakfast.”

To Jeanette’s astonishment, Cousin Effie said, “Oh, I think the good Lord can accept wonderment at His creation as praise.”

“That’s the spirit! The gates open at ten; let’s say I’ll be in a cab at your door at nine thirty.”

*   *   *

“Cousin Effie, I believe I’m chaperoning
you
!” exclaimed Jeanette, when they got upstairs. She fell backward onto the bed. “You’ve made a conquest.”

“Go on,” said Effie, turning pink. “Dr. Murer is a real gentleman, though, isn’t he.”

“The nicest person there,” agreed Jeanette, closing her eyes as she dissolved into tears.

“What a thing to say when Mrs. Renick was your hostess!”

Jeanette rolled onto her side and made an effort to hide her misery. “And M. Grandcourt,” she said. “Mr. Renick, though—you hardly notice him, do you?”

“Oh, I think you’d find that Mr. Murer and Mr. Monroe noticed very little else,” said Effie. If life in New York City had taught her anything, it was to locate the center of power in a room.

“Not that he or Mrs. Renick will want to see us again—ever.” Jeanette buried her face in the counterpane. “Oh, Cousin Effie, I’m afraid I spoiled everything for you, too.”

When they were little, when their nurse scolded and they were afraid of their mother, the Hendrick children had always run to Effie to hide tearful faces in her black skirts. She had no power to intervene with the authorities that governed her life as well as theirs, and her efforts at giving comfort were clumsy; but until about age twelve, when they learned to see her with dismissive adult eyes, they depended on her. She came now and sat down on the bed beside Jeanette with her hands in her lap, looking straight out. “I don’t think it’s so bad as all that. Anyway, it won’t change things much for me if I never see the Renicks again.”

“Well, it might change them for the better if you did!”

“It might. And, of course, dear, it probably would be better not to mention being expelled from Vassar in future—”

Jeanette bit a wad of bedding and squeezed her eyes tighter shut.

“—but from my side of the table, you looked pretty and vivacious all evening.” Effie turned sideways and touched a tentative hand to Jeanette’s shoulder. “I was proud to be with you, that’s what.”

Jeanette lay weeping softly. Then, like her Hendrick cousins, she wriggled closer to put an arm around Effie’s waist and pressed her head against the older woman’s side until she gained control of herself. When she sat up again, wiping her eyes, she did not have to do anything more to express her gratitude.

“Time for beauty sleep,” said Effie.

“It’s
you
we have to make beautiful tomorrow!” said Jeanette, in a half-sobbing laugh.

*   *   *

At the Place de la Concorde, Edward had himself let out to walk through the tree-filled Champs-Élysées. A chestnut allée led to the grounds of the big outdoor
café-chansant
, Les Ambassadeurs. In the leafy night garden within the café’s enclosing hedge, tiers of gas globe lamps hung luminous enough to glow through the shrubs and lower branches of trees. Strains from an orchestra playing a popular tune carried out over a clamor of laughter, voices, and glasses clinking. The smell of alcohol, tobacco, and eau de cologne diffused into the night. Out in the shadowy expanses of the park, the subtler fragrance of linden trees and lilacs hinted at something desirable, elusive. The lovely phrase came to him,
passer la nuit à la belle étoile
: more of a whisper in French than in English, to spend the night under the stars. For a moment, Edward wished he could follow the genial drift of dreamers and strollers among those more mysterious trees, but the blatant entertainment of a
café-chansant
was one of the sights of Paris they had promised Sophie. He paid his entrance fee.

“Uncle Edward!” said Carl, who was on the lookout. “Come on. We have a table and champagne.”

They threaded their way among scores of tables set out behind more densely packed rows of seats. On a garishly lit stage sat two rows of ornamental young women in short-sleeved, low-cut evening gowns, who watched the performance or the customers and whispered behind fans.

“Not one of those girls can hold a candle to Miss Monroe,” said Carl.

“Better for your morals and pocket to think so,” replied Edward.

Out front on stage, a coarse-featured woman, highly made up and buxom, strutted, bobbed, and gesticulated suggestively while she belted out a rollicking song. With each verse, the general-admission crowd swayed and joined in ever more lustily at a refrain about cracking walnuts. As they approached the Murers’ table, Edward was glad Sophie spoke little French—though from the look on her face she knew very well that the lyrics were risqué. At the same time, she seemed at ease among the well-dressed clientele at the tables around them. Good old Sophie: no prude, nor for that matter really a snob. Her wholehearted enjoyment in the evening was at one with his sense of mild adventure.

“Here you are,
liebken
, sit down,” she said. “Now what was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” said Edward. “Is that ice cream you’ve got, Eddie?”

“Vanilla—and my first champagne!” With a broad grin, Eddie held up a tulip-shaped glass.

A waiter appeared at Edward’s shoulder and filled one for him from the magnum Theodore had ordered.

“
Merci
,” said Edward. “
Santé
,” he added to Eddie, lifting the glass.

“Well?” demanded Theodore.

Edward met his brother’s eyes coolly. Sometimes when he thought Theodore was pulling rank as the elder, it helped to remember that he had killed men in cold blood, whereas his brother never had. It put an edge to the deliberate reasonableness with which he answered, “Cornelia asked me to escort Miss Palmer and Miss Pendergrast home. So I did.”

“She saw that you were the man for wounded ducks,” said Theodore.

“In her exact words, she said she thought a little chivalry was called for.”

“Chivalry!” hooted Carl. “Toward that pair of horrors?”

“They are not horrors,” said Edward, “and I didn’t see one of them forget herself at table.”

“Then you didn’t hear Miss Palmer blurt out that she was a dangerous woman. She might have been laying a trap on purpose for a fellow to trip over.”

“A fellow can be tripped up, Carl, but not a man of the world.”

Carl stared in disbelief at the uncle who had taught him how to fish and throw knives, but whom he tended to patronize mentally, having witnessed too much of Edward’s fastidiousness at the store and too many of his breakdowns. Tonight his reproofs were coming out of unsuspected regions of experience.
“Touché.”

Edward lifted his glass in salute.

“Well, well,” said Theodore, looking uncertainly from one to the other. “So Eddie,” he went on, turning to his other son, “now that you have seen the famous
café-chansant
for which you are much too young, and tasted your first champagne, for which you are also too young, and eaten your ice cream, are you ready to go back to the hotel, eh?”

“Oh, Pop, can’t I watch the clowns? Please, sir, just a little longer?”

A pair of comic dancers had come onstage at the conclusion of a set by the star chanteuse. The noise level in the audience rose as hundreds of spectators turned to talk among themselves. Theodore chuckled.

“
Ja.
Poor clowns. They will be glad of the attention. Turn your chair around and you will see better. Then, Edward, perhaps—”

“I’ll take him back,” volunteered Carl.

“Look, I want to get up early tomorrow,” began Edward.

“Carl is right,” said Theodore, holding him back with a look.

Later, when the boys left, jostling and punching each other on the shoulder, Theodore watched them indulgently. “It is good to be young and good for brothers to do things together. They walk down the Champs-Élysées in Paris and a few blocks along the Rue de Rivoli—it is something they remember the rest of their lives. You and I, Edward—”

“Carl won’t remember anything from tonight except Miss Lila Monroe,” said Edward.

Sophie laughed. “Carl falls in love easily, but not yet hard. Still, why not dream moon dreams in Paris? You should fall in love yourself,
liebken
.”

In the synthetic gaiety of the surroundings, the triteness of the suggestion fell as a false note in Edward’s ear, especially from Sophie, who should know him better. He hid behind gallantry. “You are already taken,
madame
.”

“She reserves a little corner of her heart for you,” said Theodore, looking at his brother shrewdly.

“Where it is very peaceful,” said Edward, returning the look steadily. “But you inhabit the mansion.”

*   *   *

The next morning, to be sure of avoiding the family, Edward left the hotel for breakfast. On the street, the air was cool and surfaces damp with collecting dew; over the occasional swish of a vehicle on the wet asphalt, he could hear birdsong in the trees of the Tuileries Garden. In the space of two blocks, he met a man still in evening dress, walking with the precarious precision of inebriation; two yawning girls in limp finery; a uniformed footman walking a standard poodle on a leash; and three Arabs in full desert attire—enough, thought Edward, to make a man from Cincinnati count as a full-fledged flâneur in his own eyes. He stopped at a tobacconist to buy a newspaper and tickets to the fair, then selected a café notable for its brass and marble, where he could read in mirrored splendor. Before going in, he tipped a
commissionaire
to bring an open four-seater around at nine.

At nine thirty, on the Rue Jacob, the ladies were waiting for him, unpretentiously punctual. Effie’s face lit up when she saw him, and even more so when he conducted her to a stylish landau: She was sure it would raise her and Jeanette in the estimation of the ever-watchful Mme. LeConte. Jeanette, still tired after a bad night’s sleep, was more subdued. She had overcome her initial reluctance ever to get out of bed again, much less meet someone from the night before, only by yielding to Effie’s excitement as the course of least resistance. Also, her mother’s voice reminded her that she was the one who had accepted the invitation.

Once they left the claustrophobic side streets, the carriage sped alongside the quay. As they neared the entrance to the fair, however, traffic slowed almost to a standstill.

“Do you mind walking from here?” asked Edward.

“Heavens, no!” said Effie. “We’ll be on our feet all day, anyway.”