Read Moonlight Over Paris Online
Authors: Jennifer Robson
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Villa Vesna
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Antibes, France
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5 July 1924
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Dearest Amalia,
                   Â
I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of news for you this week, for life on the Côte d'Azur continues in much the same vein as it has done since my arrival. I quite enjoy the routineâup at dawn, a solitary walk down to the water, some sketching there if I feel inspired, then back home for breakfast on the terrace with Auntie A. After that I move to my studio and work up sketches from the day before, with a break for lunch around one o'clock. I did try asking the cook if I might simply have a sandwich on a tray, but I only managed to horrify the poor woman. So lunch at table it is, with the addition once or twice a week of Auntie A's friends.
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You won't be surprised to hear that our aunt knows everyone here: the great, the good, the notorious, and the merely interesting, too. At first, when people visited, I was a little concerned they might have heard of my social difficulties back in London, but no one has
said a thing. Not yet, at any rate! Agnes introduces me as her niece, says I am visiting from England, and that is that.
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In the afternoons, I go down to the seaside for a swim, for the water is much warmer now. Auntie A comes with me from time to time, but she insists on being driven down the hill, and tends to fuss about everythingâthe heat, the wind, even the sand that clings to Hamish's paws.
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Most evenings we go out to dine, most often with Sara and Gerald Murphy. I'm sure I mentioned their arrival in my last letter, and since then I've seen them at least three or four times. At present they are staying at the Hôtel du Cap with their children, for their villa is being renovated and won't be ready until the end of the summer.
Helena sipped at her tea, though it had already gone cold, and smiled at the memory of her first meeting with Sara. It had been the spring of 1914, not long after her own debut, and she had been feeling rather adrift at a particularly dreary tea party. She'd joined a conversation, drawn by the talk of modern art, as well as the American voice she overheard, and had been introduced to Miss Sara Wiborg, lately of East Hampton, New York.
Sara had been defending the work of Marcel Duchamp to a clutch of disbelieving and pinch-faced matrons. Though normally shy when meeting new people, Helena hadn't hesitated before chiming in, avowing her admiration for Duchamp and his fellow Cubists. She and Sara had talked non-stop for the rest of the afternoon.
The Wiborg family had departed for Italy not long after, but Sara and Helena had maintained a faithful, if irregular, correspondence throughout the intervening years. In 1915 she
had married Gerald, and not so long ago they had moved to France, it would seem for good.
As far as Helena had known, they'd been living in Paris; she had meant to call on them once she was settled there in September. So it had been a lovely surprise to discover the entire family at the little beach at La Garoupe one afternoon a few weeks earlier, and then to learn they were staying for the rest of the summer.
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Tonight Auntie A and I are dining with the Murphys, along with an American friend of Gerald's. As I write this it's nearly eleven in the morning, so if I'm to get in any plein air work today I must be off. Although people don't really dress for dinner here in Antibes our aunt does expect me to be presentableâand that means I need to set aside a solid hour at the end of the day to scrub the paint from under my fingernails and render the rest of my person fit for company!
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I promise to write again soonâAuntie A sends her best wishesâ
With much love,
Helena
Having packed her satchel after breakfast, it remained only to fetch a sandwich and a flask of water from the kitchen, leave the letter to Amalia on the hall table for Vincent to post later, and haul her bicycle out of the garage. She'd found it a few weeks earlier, tucked away in the back of the old stables, and although it was old and rather heavy it worked well once Vincent had cleaned off the cobwebs and set it to rights.
The ride into the hills north of Antibes was ever so pleasant, and in the hours that followed she made some very satisfactory sketches of lavender growing wild in an ancient grove
of olive trees. She worked happily for ages, only noticing the time when she paused for a drink of water, and realized the afternoon was nearly gone.
She packed up her things and began the journey home, but her bicycle dropped its chain before she'd gone even a mile, and despite her best efforts the chain stubbornly refused to stay put. Helena was so intent on trying to fix her bicycle that she didn't hear the approaching vehicle until it pulled to a growling halt only a few yards away.
Turning around, she expected to see one of the goods lorries or delivery vans that comprised most of the limited traffic on the narrow, unpaved roads. Instead, she was surprised to discover a small and low-slung coupe, its exterior painted with red and blue racing stripes. The driver, a man only a few years older than she, switched off the engine.
“Do you need a hand there?” he asked in a faintly amused American baritone.
He seemed friendly enough, but he was looking at her far too boldly, and she felt certain he was holding back a smile. No, not a smileâa smirk. He hadn't even bothered to say hello, or to introduce himself properly.
“Thank you, but no. I'm quite all right.” She stared back, unblinking, her posture so perfect even her mother would have approved. Only then did she realize he hadn't spoken to her in French. “How did you know . . . ?”
“That you're English? You don't often see Frenchwomen on bicycles.”
“You aren't French, either.”
“Nope. My accent give me away?” He grinned at her.
“Well, yes. That and . . . I suppose you just look like an American.”
“Huh. I guess I'd better take that as a compliment.”
He clambered out of his motorcar and walked over to look at her bicycle. It was a wonder he'd even fit in the coupe, for he was well over six feet tall, and broad-shouldered besides. He wore a linen suit, rather crumpled and dusty, and his shirt was open at the neck. On his head he sported a long-billed American cap, but he pulled it off and tossed it in the car, revealing short-cropped auburn hair.
“Why don't I see what the problem is, Duchess?”
“I'm notâ” Helena began, but stopped short when she realized he was only teasing her. In vain she tried to think of something amusing to say, but her mind remained stubbornly blank.
Crouching by her bicycle, he pulled at its chain, muttering a little under his breath. He sat back on his haunches and began to rummage about in the grass. “I need a stick, nothing too big . . . here we go.” Using the stick as a guide, he looped one end of the chain over the rear cog, and then eased it around to fit over the front chain ring. He then grasped the nearside pedal and turned it slowly round until the chain clicked into place.
“There. Fixed.”
“Really? I tried that half a dozen times but I couldn't get it to stay on.”
“You'd have probably got it on eventually. Using the stick helps.”
“Of course. That's, ah, that's terribly helpful. Thank you so much, Misterâ”
“Howard. Sam Howard.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Howard. I'm Helena Parr.” She wondered if she ought to offer her hand for him to shake, but
remembered, just in time, that it was dirty. Of course his hands were dirty, too, so it really ought not to matter.
“Do you need any more help, d'you think?”
“No. You've done more than enough. I mustn't keep you.” She winced at the sound of her voice, so prim and starchy compared to his unaffected friendliness.
“So long, then. Perhaps I'll see you around town.” He smiled then, really smiled, and she saw that he had a dimple in one cheek and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheekbones. She'd never known a grown man with freckles, or perhaps she simply had never noticed before.
“That would be very nice.” What was wrong with her?
Very nice?
Even as a green debutante of eighteen she'd been capable of conversation that was ten times as sparkling.
“It was good to meet you, Miss Parr. You're sure you don't need me to stay? Just to make sure you're fine?”
“I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure that I'm fine. Really, there's no need to stay. Thanks ever so much.”
“As long as you're sure, then,” he said, and smiled at her once more. It made his eyes crinkle at the corners in an awfully endearing fashion, and it also made her notice, rather unwillingly, just how handsome he was. “Good-bye.”
He returned to his car, somehow managed to fit his long legs into its cockpit, or whatever one called the driving compartment of a motorcar, and drove off in a cloud of dust and exhaust.
By the time she got home, a half hour later, Helena was grimy, terribly thirsty, and suffering from a tremendous headache. Leaving her satchel in the studio, she hurried upstairs to the bathroom, praying there would be enough hot water left in the cistern for her to have a modest bath. She opened the hot
water tap all the way, and went to look at herself in the cheval mirror while the tub filled.
It was even worse than she'd imagined. Her frock, fortunately an old one, was streaked with bicycle grease and dust from the road. Her face was nearly as dirty, and her hair, which now reached to her earlobes, was standing on end. She might have been one of the urchins from Fagin's den of thieves. Her laugh echoed in the tiled roomâno wonder Mr. Howard had been grinning at her. Between her disheveled appearance and her tongue-tied responses, she must have come across as decidedly strange.
The tap began to clamor and clank; that was the end of the hot water. She added a splash of cold, so she wouldn't scald herself, and poured in some lemon bath essence. She would wash her hair, wash every inch of her person, and then she would swallow two tablets of aspirin and take a short nap. When she awoke, she would be perfectly rested and ready for a pleasant evening with her aunt and the Murphysâand then, maybe tomorrow, she would locate her wits and what little dignity she still possessed, go into town, and find Mr. Howard to thank him properly for his help.
H
elena was, indeed, much restored by the time they left. She wore the nicest of her dinner frocks, a simple shift in heavy, midnight blue silk charmeuse, its inky darkness brightened by scrolling silver embroidery at its neck and hem. Her hair was now long enough to look fashionably bobbed and not simply shorn, and apart from setting a slim diamanté clip in the locks by her left temple, she left it alone.
Agnes was wearing one of her glorious velvet
devoré
caftans, this one in a burnt orange color that ought to have looked dreadful but instead suited her admirably. In her hair, which had been hennaed to a shade that very nearly matched her frock, her aunt wore a peacock feather aigrette, its clip adorned by a diamond the size of a quail's egg.
The Hôtel du Cap, which occupied an enviable swath of seafront at the southeastern tip of the cape, was all but deserted in high summer, its wealthy and titled clientele preferring to holiday in milder climes. Monsieur Sella, the hotel's proprietor, had been planning to shut the hotel for the summer, Sara had confided, but Gerald had persuaded him to keep it open.
Gerald and Sara were sitting with a single man, his back to
them, when she and Agnes arrived. The table, which had been set for five, was at the edge of the dining room, its linen napery fluttering in the soft evening breeze.
Gerald was the first to notice them. “Sara, darling, they're here!”
Just then, the man turned to face Helena and Agnes, and she was astonished to see that it was Sam Howard. It was such a surprise that she simply stood and gawped while Gerald made their introduction.
“Sam Howard, may I introduce you to the Princess Dimitri Pavlovich, and to her niece, the Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr. Ladies, may I introduce you to Mr. Sam Howard, a correspondent with the European edition of the
Chicago Tribune
.”
“Good evening,” they chimed.
He was somehow even taller than she remembered, though not as young as she'd first thought, for there were deep-set laugh lines around his dark blue eyes when he smiled. His hair, in the lamplight, looked more brown than auburn, but his freckles were just as noticeable.
“Good to meet you, Princess Dimitri, Lady Helena.”
“Please do call me Agnes, or Mrs. Paulson if you're obsessed with minding your elders. Our royals anglicized their names, so why shouldn't I? Besides, all that grand duchess folderol seems so terribly old-fashioned to me. I know dear Dimitri expected it, but he was the great-grandson of a czar, after all.”
“Well, then, Mrs. Paulson it is. Glad to make your acquaintance.”
It seemed as if Mr. Howard was about to say more, but the arrival of their waiter forestalled any further conversation until everyone had been furnished with their first course of sliced tomatoes with olives and a basil dressing.
“The chef is short-staffed, so I ordered for the table ahead of time,” Gerald explained. “After this we'll have grilled leg of lamb, and then some figs and cheese to finish.” Instead of wine, they had one of Gerald's cocktails with their first course. “I call it âJuice of a Few Flowers.' My own recipe. Orange, lemon, grapefruit, and lime juices, with just a splash of gin. What do you think?”
Helena took a careful sip, for she had learned to be wary of Gerald's concoctions, and promptly choked on it when Mr. Howard spoke again.
“Lady Helena and I actually met earlier today. On the road into town. She was having some trouble with her bike, so I stopped to see if I might help.” He smiled, revealing the boyish dimple in his cheek again.
“Helena! You didn't say a thing,” Agnes chided. “You know how I feel about your riding miles and miles on that contraption. You might have become ill with sunstroke.”
She directed a frostbitten glare at her aunt. “I was fine. I
am
fine.”
Mr. Howard drained his cocktail, grimacing a little, and shook his head. “It wasn't anything worth worrying about, Mrs. Paulson. Just a slipped chain. We fixed it in no time.”
Helena couldn't help but smile at his generous use of the collective pronoun. “There was no âwe,' I'm afraid. I'd still be there if Mr. Howard hadn't come along.”
“You
divine
man,” Agnes all but cooed. “You must come for lunchâtell me you will. Tomorrow? I insist absolutely.”
“Oh, Auntie A,” Helena pleaded. “I'm sure Mr. Howard has better things to do thanâ”
“I'd love to, but I'm only here a few days,” he explained. “One of my colleagues is in Nice for the summer with his family. They took the train down, but he wanted his Peugeot,
too. So we drew straws, all of us on the rewrite desk at the paper, and I won. Wish I could stay longer, though,” he added, and he looked directly at Helena.
“You're staying here at the hotel?” Agnes asked.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Lovely. How long have you known Gerald and Sara?”
“Oh, three or four yearsâdoes that sound right, Gerald?”
“We have mutual friends in Paris,” Gerald said. “Archie and Ada MacLeish.”
“Archie and I were friends at Harvard, and then we served together during the war,” Mr. Howard added. “He and Ada have been nice enough to introduce me to people of taste and refinement, unlike the crowd I run with most of the time.”
“Your colleagues at the newspaper?” Helena asked, belatedly realizing how insulting that sounded. “I beg your pardon. I didn't meanâ”
“Don't worry about it,” he said with a grin. “They're Philistines, almost to a man. And we deskmen are the worst of the lot.”
“What's a deskman?”
“I work on the rewrite desk most evenings. Though I'll sub in on days if they need an extra body.”
She nodded, though she still had no real notion of what he was talking about. “I've seen your paper. There was a copy on the train when I came here. It was very interesting.”
“Thanks. I'm glad you liked it. What do you do, anyway?” he asked.
It was such a surprising thing to be asked that she yet again found herself lost for words. Most people, after hearing her title, and learning a little about her upbringing, simply assumed she did nothing. That she had no identity beyond being the youngest daughter of the Earl of Halifax.
Sara answered him first. “Helena is an artist, and we all think she is terribly talented. She's starting classes in September at the Académie Czerny.”
“I can vouch for Helena's talent,” Gerald said. “She has a fine eye, particularly for color. Far better than my own.”
This was a grand compliment indeed, for Gerald, though largely self-taught, was an artist of some renown, with work that the great Picasso himself had praised. Only that spring, one of his paintings had caused a sensation at the Salon des Indépendants.
“Gerald and Sara are too kind. I still have so much to learn.”
“No better place than Paris. Not that I'd knowâI can hold a pencil well enough to scribble down notes, but that's about it. Is that the connection between you and my friends here? Art?”
“You know, I suppose it is,” Sara answered. “I was in London just before the war, and met Helena when I was there. Of course I was quite a bit older, but we soon discovered we had a lot in common. She came to my rescue one day, when I was trying to champion Cubism to some grandes damesâ”
“You were doing perfectly well on your own,” Helena insisted. “I merely contributed some moral support.”
“All the same, I was very grateful to find a friend with similar interests and enthusiasms.”
“I was heartbroken when you and your sisters left for Italy,” Helena added.
“We'd hoped Helena might visit me in America, but the war got in the way, and then . . . well, you know what they say about one's best intentions. We're making up for lost time this summer.”
Sara and Helena reminisced throughout the rest of the meal, while Mr. Howard divided his attention between Gerald and Agnes. As they were eating the last of the figs that had
been serving in lieu of pudding, the Murphys' children were brought in to say good night. A little surprised by the lateness of their bedtime, Helena glanced at her watch and saw it was only a quarter to nine. Hardly more than an hour had passed since her and Agnes's arrival at the hotel.
“Honoria, Baoth, Patrick. Please say good night to Mrs. Paulson and Lady Helena, and to Mr. Howard.”
“Good night, Mr. Howard,” they chimed, coming round to shake his hand. “Good night, Mrs. Paulson. Good night, Ellie.”
“Good night, my dears,” Helena replied, not minding their use of her childhood nickname at all. “Shall I see you on the beach tomorrow afternoon?”
“Yes, oh yes! Yes, pleeeeease!” shouted Patrick, who was only four years old. “We're going on a treasure hunt!”
Gerald smiled indulgently. “You won't be going anywhere if you don't listen to Nanny and hop straight into bed. It's already an hour past your bedtime.”
The Murphys were such wonderful parents, and their children really were delightful in every way. It did pain Helena at times, the knowledge that she was unlikely to ever have her own children, but moments like these went a long way in making up for such disappointment. And it was something, besides, to be everyone's favorite aunt.
With the children settled and their meal at an end, Gerald suggested they go out to the terrace and watch the sunset. So they trooped after him and stood before the modern, chromed railing as the sun descended ever closer to the wine-dark, slumbering sea.
Gerald passed around his cigarette case, but Helena's parents had forbidden her to smoke when she was younger, and consequently she had never taken up the habit. In any case, she quite
disliked the smell. Rather to her surprise, Mr. Howard declined as well, and moved a little distance away from the others.
“Gassed in the war,” he explained. “Smoking just makes it worse.”
“I see,” she said. “I'm sorry toâ”
“So . . . Ellie,” he said, turning to face her, his hip against the railing. “You don't seem like an Ellie.”
“It's my pet name. From childhood. Didn't you have one?”
“Well, I was christened Samuel, so I guess that Sam is it. Never felt like a Samuel. That's my uncle's name.”
“I don't feel like an Ellie, not really. But I don't mind when the children use it. Or my aunt.”
“Earlier, when I was fixing your bike, you introduced yourself as Helena Parr.”
“I'm only the daughter of an earl,” she protested. “The âlady' is a courtesy title; no more. I'm nothing in my own right.”
“Aren't you?” he asked, suddenly serious.
“You know what I mean. It's something that belongs to my father, not me. That's why I don't like to use it. And it does seem rather, well, pretentious. Especially when speaking with an American. Please call me Miss Parr.”
“Would you mind if I called you Ellie instead?”
Oddly enough, she wouldn't. “No,” she said, and found herself smiling up at him.
“And would you mind if I join you at the beach tomorrow?”
“Not at all. Do you know how to dig for buried treasure? Build a sand castle? The children will expect us all to join in.”
“Does an American know how to play baseball? Of course I do.”
“Then I'llâ”
“Helena, dear, do you mind awfully if we trundle back home?” Aunt Agnes called.
“No, I don't mind.” She took a step back from Mr. Howard and offered her hand. He shook it firmly, just as he'd shake hands with a man. “Good night, then,” she said.
“Good night, Ellie. See you tomorrow.”
Agnes, normally so chatty at the end of an evening out, complained of a headache as they got into the coupe for the short trip home, and the resulting silence gave Helena a chance to reflect on their dinner with the Murphys and Mr. Howard. She decided that she rather liked him, and not only because he was handsome and interesting and really quite amusing. He was, she reflected, simply unlike any man she'd ever met in her circle of acquaintance at home. He was honest and straightforward, and she hadn't discerned even a hint of artifice or pretense in his manner.
With the exception of Gerald, whom she knew by virtue of her friendship with Sara, she'd never had a male friend before. There had been her fiancé, and before him a handful of suitors, but she couldn't honestly say they'd known anything about her. Certainly she'd never felt she could speak to them with candor, or share her thoughts and feelings in any meaningful way. Yet Mr. Howard, on the strength of a few hours' acquaintance, had asked her questions and, even more surprising, had actually listened to her answers.
Most surprising of all, she'd managed to speak with him as Helena Parr, a confident and articulate adult. The shy and awkward debutante of ten years past? Gone. The rejected fiancée, so cringing and apologetic, of five years ago? Absent.
Just the thought of it made her smile. And it made her wonder: here, in France, might she finally be free of the past?