Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters

by Lesley M. M. Blume

  “Yes,” Cornelia said, sinking sullenly into a chair opposite Virginia. “She was practicing a lot for her concert in Paris. She left again this morning.”

  “Oh, j’adore Paris! And speaking of the City of Light, did you notice my French drawing room?” asked Virginia.

  Cornelia had not, but now she looked around. Thick silk the color of a robin’s egg covered the walls. Both the ceiling and floor appeared to have been made of gold, as did all of the furniture. A gigantic white marble fireplace mantel, big as a walk-in closet, was carved into the far wall. A heavy gilded mirror hung above it, suspended by string as thick and strong as piano wires. The regal formality of the room suddenly made Cornelia want to curtsy, but since she didn’t know how, she sat up very straight instead.

  “I modeled it after a drawing room of the French queen named Marie Antoinette,” Virginia said. “Beastly woman, but she had good taste in drawing rooms.”

  “It’s very pretty,” Cornelia admitted. “But it makes me feel like I have to really mind my manners all of a sudden.” But then she slouched again and looked at her hands.

  “That’s because it’s French,” said Virginia mysteriously. “I write my letters in this room. And I have my breakfast and read newspapers here. And spy, of course.”

  They were quiet for a moment, and then Virginia asked, “Is everything all right today, Cornelia?”

  Cornelia slid down in her chair and focused on her kneecaps jutting out from under her skirt. “What are you supposed to do when you miss somebody?” she asked vaguely.

  “Well, I miss my sisters terribly,” Virginia answered thoughtfully, drumming her fingers quietly on the padded arm of her chair. “So I try to do things that remind me of them. And I surround myself with things that remind me of them. And of course, I tell stories about them to other people.” She looked at Cornelia gently. “I’m sure that you miss your mother when she’s away giving concerts.”

  “I guess so,” said Cornelia. “Sometimes. Although it’s nice to have time to myself as well. But is it possible to miss someone you’ve never met?”

  “Absolutely!” Virginia declared. “Half of the world is in love with someone they’ve never met, and never will meet. And each of those poor souls misses their mystery person terribly.”

  “At least you were together with your sisters all the time,” Cornelia said, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t have any family, except for my mother.”

  “Cornelia,” Virginia said softly. “I’m sure that you get lonely sometimes without brothers or sisters—or your father. When someone’s missing from your life, it can be terrible. I think that’s one of the reasons I became a writer, actually. You can’t wish a person into existence in real life, but you can on paper, and those characters take on a life of their own. You can make them behave in any way that you want, and you can spend as much or as little time with them as you like.

  “But,” she continued, “in any case, it’s important that you don’t spend too much time dwelling on the people who are absent, for that is a very slippery slope. More than anything, you have to appreciate the people who really are around you. Too many people realize at the end of their lives that they’ve taken for granted those who really love them.”

  Cornelia stared at a gold writing desk across the room. “I like being around you, and Patel. And Mister Kinyatta.” A tear streaked down along her nose. “I wish that I had sisters like yours.”

  Virginia smiled. “Those sisters were a mixed blessing, I assure you. I can’t tell you how many times I wished that I were an only child, when Beatrice stole my toys or Alexandra bossed me around or Gladys got me into trouble. The grass is always greener on the other side.”

  Just then, Patel came in with a tray.

  “Don’t cry, Cornelia,” Virginia said, rising up from her chair to see the top of the tray. “It’s actually sunny out today, and we’re going to eat some delicious treats. One of my favorite lady writers, Isak Dinesen, used to eat only oysters and drink champagne, which is on my menu this afternoon. That’s how I like to honor her memory,” she said jauntily.

  Patel set the tray down on a little table near Virginia. “For Cornelia-ji, I have brought a chocolat chaud and a tarte aux pommes,” he said.

  Cornelia wiped her cheeks and looked at the cup of steaming hot chocolate and the lovely apple tart that Patel had brought for her. She smiled at him and straightened up. He handed her a linen napkin and left the room.

  “Dhanyavaad, Patel,” Virginia called after him.

  “That means ‘Thank you’ in Hindi,” she told Cornelia.

  “Mmmmm, this looks good. Gladys was always partial to a good tarte aux pommes.

  “Look over there,” she added, pointing to another black-and-white framed photograph on the writing desk. “That’s a picture of the Somerset sisters in Paris, where we went after Morocco.” She teased an oyster out of its shell with a tiny gold fork.

  Cornelia got up and looked at the picture. This time, the Somerset ladies stood near a sunlit river in a city with a huge cathedral looming in the background. Just like in their Morocco photograph, they all wore nearly matching hats. Cornelia looked down around their ankles and counted four little dogs that looked just like Mister Kinyatta. Beatrice held their leashes and was the only one in the photo scowling.

  “Why does Beatrice have all of those dogs?” Cornelia asked.

  “That’s interesting that you can tell Beatrice from Alexandra,” said Virginia with a raised eyebrow. “Very few people ever could. Until they opened their mouths, that is.”

  “The difference is obvious,” said Cornelia knowledgeably. “Alexandra looks more magisterial.” In less polite terms, this meant that Alexandra looked bossier than the others.

  Virginia laughed. “That’s true. And regarding the dogs: we acquired them through a big blunder. But if the mistake hadn’t been made, I wouldn’t have Mister Kinyatta here. One of those dogs is his great-great-great-grandfather, and the others are his great-great-great-uncles. Or something like that.”

  Cornelia went back to her chair and took a bite of her tarte aux pommes. “I wonder what my mother is doing in Paris right now,” she said. “Do you have any good stories about when you were there with your sisters?”

  Virginia smiled again. “What a silly question,” she said, reaching for another oyster. “Of course I do.”

  Chapter Six

  Paris, 1950

  “The summer sun in Morocco was so punishing that we decided to go north. We packed up and said good-bye to Pierre, Ahmed, and our secret palace in the medina. Then we took a train to Casablanca, boarded a ship, and in no time at all, we were in France.

  “Alexandra, Beatrice, Gladys, and I lived in another hidden home in Paris. Our mother had arranged for us to live in a vine-covered house in Paris’s oldest and most beautiful square, the Place des Vosges. The edges of the square were made up of matching grand houses that reminded me of pink cakes with white frosting edges. In the middle of the square sat a perfect open park with hedgelike trees and fountains. Royalty and aristocrats and artists had lived in the noble houses for centuries, but I loved the square because many famous writers had lived there. The twins loved it because it was perfectly symmetrical, each side exactly matching the opposite side—rather like Alexandra and Beatrice themselves. And Gladys loved it because all sorts of bloody sword duels had taken place there hundreds of years before.

  “Our hidden house had no exact address, and when we first arrived in Paris in a taxi, we drove around and around the Place des Vosges looking for it. Finally, we spotted a big wooden arched door without a house number in one of the pink buildings. It reminded me of the door in the sultan’s banquet room in Meknes.

  “‘Here we go again,’ Gladys said, and leaped out of the taxi. She pressed her thumb into a buzzer next to the door.

  “After a moment or two, a small older woman opened the door. She wore little glasses and looked as neat as a present.

  “‘Bonjour, Ma
demoiselle Somerset,’ the woman said. She was holding a photo of us that our mother had sent to her. She glanced at it for a second, and then looked back at Gladys, eyeing her up and down. ‘You are Gladys,’ she said. ‘Je m’appelle Madame Laloux. I am Madame Laloux. Entrezvous, s’il vous plaît. Please do come in.’

  “Madame Laloux was the owner and gouvernante, or housekeeper, and she lived on the fourth floor.”

  “Oh, no,” interrupted Cornelia. The word “housekeeper” always raised a red flag for her. “I bet she chased you around the house a lot, like Madame Desjardins does to me.”

  “Well, that was the idea, I guess,” said Virginia. “Our mother wanted someone to keep an eye on us, after hearing of our adventure in Morocco from the ambassador in Morocco. But Madame Laloux was a strange old woman who came downstairs only to clean the house and serve us breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. It was an ideal arrangement. Three thousand miles away, our mother thought that we had a chaperone, and we really had all the freedom in the world. And just wait until you hear about the house itself.”

  “The four of us followed Madame Laloux through the heavy wooden door, which led into a tall arched tunnel. A pretty garden spread out on the other side of the tunnel and in front of our vine-covered house. Tall and quite narrow, the building bent a little bit this way, and then back in the other direction. Its eleven window boxes overflowed with crimson flowers, and petals blew like parade confetti in the breeze.

  “Inside, the house had four floors of drawing rooms, living rooms, parlors, writing rooms, libraries, and bedrooms. All of the rooms had special couches called chaises longues and silk-covered walls and old ticking clocks and marble fireplaces and ancient heavy wooden beams in the ceilings.

  “The next morning, after a good night of sleep in deep feather beds, we ate croissants and cheese for breakfast in a quaint parlor on the first floor. Beatrice read from a French newspaper and tortured us as she tried to pronounce the words.

  “‘That sounds terrible,’ said Gladys, her mouth full. ‘Why don’t you take lessons?’

  “‘My French is parme,’ Beatrice said defensively. ‘Which means “perfect.” And the rest of you barely even know the French words for “yes” and “no,” so you should all be grateful that I’m here.’

  “‘Actually, I think that you meant to say parfait,’ said Alexandra with a teasing smile. ‘Which means “perfect.” Parme means “violet.” And I’m afraid, dear Beatrice, that your French is neither parme nor parfait.’

  “At that moment, Madame Laloux walked into the room, taking tidy little steps. ‘A télégramme from your mère,’ she said, placing a white envelope on the middle of the breakfast table and hurrying out again.

  “Beatrice grabbed the envelope and tore it open. She chewed a little bite of croissant as she read it over. ‘Oh, how dull,’ she said, tossing it back on the table. ‘Mom wants us to call a special shop and order her some Limoges china vases—four of them—and ship them to her in New York right away.’

  “‘Well, Beatrice,’ said Gladys. ‘Since you speak parme French and we don’t speak a word of it, I guess that fun task will fall to you.’

  “Beatrice glared at her and reached for her French dictionary, which was on the sunny windowsill behind her. ‘I know how to say “china” in French already, but I’m just making sure,’ she announced. She thumbed through the book. ‘Aha! It is just as I thought. You say chine.’

  “With her nose in the air, she marched out of the breakfast parlor to the telephone room down the hall. We heard her saying ‘chine, chine’ over and over to herself, trying to make herself remember the word. Gladys winked at Alexandra and me.

  “We sipped our cups of tea while Beatrice placed the order. Warm morning sunshine filled the room. A few minutes later, Beatrice raised her voice on the phone down the hallway.

  “‘Non, non—chien! Chien!’ she shouted. ‘Quatre!’ which means ‘four.’ This went on for quite some time. Finally, she strolled back to the breakfast parlor and sat down.

  “‘That took forever,’ Beatrice complained. ‘I had a terrible, scratchy phone connection and the shop woman on the other end couldn’t understand me. She kept telling me that they didn’t have any china vases—“Chien? Non!” Finally, she sighed and said she’d see what she could do.’

  “‘Oh, quit carping,’ said Gladys. ‘Let’s go explore.’

  “And out we went. We walked all around the Place des Vosges and through the narrow streets of our neighborhood, or arrondissement, and down to the Seine River to look at the long rows of fine white houses on the riverbanks. Once in a while, we would come across a whole street of houses that had been reduced to rubble.”

  Cornelia interrupted again. “How did the houses get knocked down?” she asked. “Was there an earthquake or something?”

  “No,” said Virginia. “Paris had been hard-hit during World War II, and a lot of houses had been destroyed. Many people died. Sometimes Gladys would point out holes that had been made by bullets in the sides of buildings. It was a very disturbing but fascinating time to be in Paris.”

  “We went to a brightly lit, noisy café for lunch and pretended to understand the menu. Beatrice ordered four plates of escargots, promising us that this meant ‘steak.’ Imagine our surprise when four dishes of garlicky snails came to the table instead.

  “Several hours later, we ambled back to our hidden house. When we knocked on the big wooden door to the hidden garden, Madame Laloux’s footsteps pitter-pattered quickly up to the door, as if she were an overwound toy. She flung the door open.

  “‘Mademoiselle Somerset!’ Madame Laloux cried, pointing a bony finger at Beatrice. ‘Non, non, non! A big mistake has been made! Come with me.’ And she scuttled down the path to the vine-covered house. Dumbfounded, we trundled after her.

  “‘Regardez!’ Madame Laloux exclaimed, flinging open the door to the downstairs drawing room. The four of us tried to cram ourselves into the narrow doorway to examine the mysterious crisis. I was stuck behind Gladys and couldn’t see into the room.

  “‘What on earth!’ shrieked Beatrice. ‘Where did they come from?’

  “Alexandra let out an ‘Oh!’ and Gladys snickered. I stood on my tiptoes and finally saw the cause of the commotion: three little French bulldogs lay on the couches and one more was curled up on the hearth of the room’s fireplace. They leaped up and sixteen paws scrambled toward us.

  “‘When your mother writes to me, she says “my four daughters come to stay with you”—she does not say four chiens! Mon Dieu!’ squealed Madame Laloux. ‘And then a woman from a shop comes today and says that Mademoiselle Beatrice Somerset has ordered four chiens for right away!’

  “One of the dogs leaped back up onto an exquisite silk settee and pawed the cushion a little bit.

  “‘Beatrice, you idiote,’ said Alexandra with an amused undertone in her voice. ‘I know what happened. You must have used the wrong word in your phone order this morning. Instead of saying chine, you probably said chien. Which, as you know, means “dog”! Someplace in between the breakfast parlor and the telephone room, you got the words mixed up. “And, anyway…chine wasn’t even the right word to begin with! Chine means ‘China,’ the country, not china dishes, Miss Know-It-All. And now we have no vases for our mother, and four French bulldogs to take care of.’

  “One of the dogs began running in crazy circles around the room, exciting the others.

  “‘Well,’ said Gladys, reaching down to pick one of them up. ‘I know whose room they’ll be sleeping in.’ She gave a sideways glance toward Beatrice.

  “‘Ohhhh,’ moaned Beatrice, clapping her hand to her forehead. ‘What am I going to do? I’ll have to call that storekeeper back and tell her to come and get them!’”

  “Gladys lifted the dog to eye level and nudged its nose with her own. The dog rewarded her with a lick. “Too late. I’ve already bonded with this one. The real question is this,’ she said. ‘Who gets to write to our mother and tell her that w
e’ve adopted four new Somerset babies?’ She smirked naughtily. ‘We could address the note to “Grandmother Somerset.” I predict a panicked telegram back within the day.’

  “Madame Laloux glared at her. ‘Folle à lier,’ she said under her breath, and she clicked huffily away to the kitchen.

  “I looked this phrase up later. It meant ‘Mad as a hatter.’”

  Cornelia leaped up and kneeled in front of the footstool where Mister Kinyatta lay asleep. She scratched his head between his big bat ears. Still asleep, he rolled over on his back so she could tickle his tummy.

  “Thank goodness that Beatrice got the dogs and not the vases,” Cornelia said, petting the dog’s white tuxedo chest. “Otherwise, who knows where Mister Kinyatta would be living now?”

  “He’d be in a Parisian apartment with some old French lady instead of an old American one,” replied Virginia. “And his name would be something like Jacques or Pascal.”

  “I think the name Mister Kinyatta is infinitely preferable,” said Cornelia.

  “I’m partial to it myself,” said Virginia, nudging the beast with her toe. “I named him after a friend from India, but I’ll tell you about that later. I can only concentrate on one country at a time.”

  “So, did you and your sisters get into any more trouble in Paris?” asked Cornelia.

  “Now, Cornelia,” said Virginia. “I think you know the answer to that question already.”

  “Several weeks went by, and Madame Laloux eventually forgave Beatrice. We moved all of the good furniture out of the front drawing room, which became the dogs’ room, and we brought cushions home from a flea market for their beds. Beatrice named the dogs Un, Deux, Trois, and Quatre—One, Two, Three, and Four. I added ‘Monsieur’ to the beginning of each of those names. Since then, all of our dogs have been Mister this or Mister that. We bought yellow leather leashes for them, and they—not Madame Laloux—became our constant chaperones.