Murder in Montparnasse (33 page)
‘Mr Jenkins!’ she cried, ‘Oh, how very nice to see you.’ Phryne had felt bad about allowing Mr Jenkins to return to the tyrant Chambers, but could not see that she could do anything about it.
‘Miss Fisher,’ said Mr Jenkins, not stammering. ‘I never would have left on my own, you know,’ he confided, sitting down next to Phryne. ‘Miss Lizzie just took me along with her. Told her father she needed me and I was entering her new husband’s employment. He didn’t even yell. He just grunted and told me to go to hell. So I went,’ said Mr Jenkins, a little dazed by his good fortune.
‘Jean-Paul!’ ordered M’sieur Anatole. ‘Open the Romaneé Conti. The 1921.’
Glass in hand, M’sieur Anatole rose to make a speech. Phryne sipped. Another astounding wine. Elizabeth stood beside M’sieur Anatole and took his unoccupied hand. She was easy with him, Phryne noticed, easy and friendly. She had clearly overlooked the moustache.
‘When I consider how sad and lonely I was a month ago I am amazed at the benevolence of le Bon Dieu, although le Bon Dieu had some help in bringing us to this desirable conclusion. Our kindness to our poor kitchen boy Sam has brought a great reward. A wife who knows how to cook, a new waiter who does not drop things,’—he looked at Jean-Paul and Jean-Paul looked right back and pouted attractively—‘A rich dowry and her own self, a skilled and clever and loving girl, whom we hope will be very happy with us as we will be happy with her.’
Elizabeth blushed and both wives and Berthe smiled at her.
‘A lot of this we owe to our redoubtable guest, Miss Fisher. A toast!’ The guests stood up. Phryne sat where she was, full of delicate food, with a feast of saumon en aspic to come, appreciated and comfortable and very pleased with the world.
‘To Miss Fisher!’ they chorused, and everyone applauded.
Phryne raised her own glass to them, remembering feasts past and contemplating feasts in prospect, and proposed a toast of her own.
‘To happy endings,’ she offered.
Everyone drank.
Baker, Michael L.,
Our Three Selves
, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1985
Barnes, Djuna,
Nightwood
, Faber and Faber, London, 1936
Barnes, Djuna,
The Book of Repulsive Women
, Bern Boyle, New York, 1989
Carpenter, Humphrey,
Geniuses Together,
George Allen &Unwin, London, 1987
Chalon, Jean,
Portrait of a Seductress
, Crown, New York, 1979
Cooper, John Butler,
The History of St Kilda 1840–1930
, Vol. II, Printer’s Prop Ltd, Melbourne, 1931
Escoffier, Auguste, translated by Vyvyan Holland,
Ma Cuisine
, Mandarin, London, 1965
Field, Andrew,
Djuna
, University of Texas, Austin, 1983
Flanner, Janet,
Paris Was Yesterday
, Harvest, New York, 1972
Haitana, Hayden,
Fine Cotton and Me
, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1986
Hemingway, Ernest,
A Moveable Feast
, Arrow Books, London, 1996
Hobhouse, Janet,
Everybody Who Was Anybody
, Weidenfeld, London, 1975
Jay, Karla,
The Amazon and the Page
, Indiana University Press, 1988
Livia, Anna (ed.),
A Perilous Advantage
, New Victoria Press, Vermont, 1992
Longmire, Anne,
St Kilda, The Show Goes On: The History of
St Kilda
, Vol. III, Hudson, Melbourne, 1985
McAlmon, Robert and Kay Boyle,
Being Geniuses Together
, Hogarth, London, 1984
Mellow, James R.,
Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company
, Avon Books, New York, 1974
Ormond, Richard,
Una Troubridge
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1984
Schenkar, Joan,
Truly Wilde
, Virago, London, 2000
Simon, Linda,
The Biography of Alice B. Toklas
, Peter Owen, London, 1978
Smith, Helen Zenna,
Not So Quiet . . . Stepdaughters of War
, Albert E. Marriott, London, 1930
Souhami, Diana,
Gertrude and Alice
, Pandora, London, 1991
Spanier, Sandra W.,
Kay Boyle
, Paragon House, New York, 1988
Stein, Gertrude,
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
, Modern Library, NU, 1980
Stewart, Samuel M.,
Murder is Murder is Murder
, Alyson Publications, Boston, 1985
Vivien, Renee, translated by Foster,
A Woman Appeared to Me
, Naiad Press, New York, 1976
Vivien, Renee, translated by Potter and Kroger,
The Muse of the
Violets
, Naiad Press, New York, 1977
Wickes, George,
The Amazon of Letters
, Popular Library, New York, 1978
Papers and council records kept by the Bayside Council; the
Lonely Planet Guide to Paris
, personal visits and interviews in Paris and Melbourne.
