I'll See You in Paris

by Michelle Gable

  “That too. But I’ll merrily take it all, even if she is still a bit cagey about her title. Tell me, what do you think of our old gal? Prostitution? Kidnappings? Murders? To name the things she was exposed to prior to age twelve.”

  “Ironic,” Pru said. “Given she accused me of being fast and a bad influence. But, personally, I prefer Mrs. Spencer’s later years. Like her relationship with Proust.”

  “A friendship for the ages.”

  “I adore the fact that he chased her around the globe, obsessed with befriending her. Demanding it, really!”

  “But she relished the chase.”

  “Without question,” Pru said. “Though she did have the good sense to be galled when his dogged pursuit landed her in a Roman jail.”

  “Well, it was illegal for priceless art to leave the city,” Win said with a laugh. “And Proust had to find some way to slow Gladys down. He was something, wasn’t he? The neurotic basket case that holed up in a cork-lined bedroom for months at a time. What a spectacle those two must’ve been together.”

  “I was telling Mrs. Spencer that a few months back I read À la recherche du temps perdu—”

  “Ha! You’re one for slim tomes,” Win said, smiling, eyes wrinkling in the sunlight. “You probably read it in French to boot. I never made it through that unwieldy book, though not for lack of trying. Too many pages, too little plot.”

  “Don’t let Mrs. Spencer hear you say that! Proust is not my favorite, but with him, the plot is not the point!”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “In Search of Lost Time is a study on mankind,” Pru said, her view on the writer softening thanks to Mrs. Spencer. “Quite revolutionary for its day, or even for now. One of my professors insisted it’s hands down the best novel of the twentieth century so far.”

  “Count Robert de Montesquiou called it ‘a mixture of litanies and sperm.’”

  “I think that’s meant as a compliment, coming from a dandy like him.”

  “You know the best bit?” Win asked. “Of her stories and anecdotes and tales?”

  He skipped another stone across the pond. The geese squawked and flapped.

  “The best part is,” he said. “I think most of it is true.”

  Pru chuckled.

  “I hope so,” she said. “It’d be a shame for the world to miss out on her.”

  Pru extended a hand and Win placed another rock in her palm. She turned and sent it skittering farther and straighter than even his best shot.

  “But she hasn’t admitted she’s the duchess,” Pru said. “Which is annoying and strange.”

  “But she’s opening up, so for now I don’t mind. And you…” He pointed at her. “I have you to thank for everything.”

  “Me? All I did was wake up in your bed, looking like a harlot.”

  “Precisely. Lady M. is a jealous cat. Bernard Berenson said about her…” He closed his eyes, remembering. “Among other things, he said that she had ‘the need to dominate, to crush under her heel the heads of those who were weaker than she. Thus no sooner would she see a possible victim than she forgot everything else, even her deepest interests, and would set out to pursue him until she had led him to his end.’”

  “So you’re the one she’s pursuing,” Pru said and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “How big of you to think so.”

  “It’s not a testament to me. Only to my gender. The duchess wanted nothing more than to be loved. By everyone. Always.”

  “Not so unique a wish, when you think about it,” Pru said. “It must’ve hurt, those words coming from Berenson. She loved him so deeply. For a time anyway.”

  Win made a face.

  “Nah,” he said. “She looked up to him, surely, but it was more akin to a father-daughter, mentor-mentee relationship.”

  “He almost left his wife for her!”

  “Which makes him about as unique as a housefly. Gladys Deacon wanted every man to love her, even if she didn’t return the sentiment. With Berenson, she had no romantic schemes whatsoever. She simply wanted him to have schemes on her.”

  “Rubbish, as you would say. Why else would she spend so much time with him?” Pru asked.

  “Gladys Deacon deemed herself the most intelligent and cultured woman in existence but her artistic credentials were feeble. In her mind, Berenson was the only person capable of teaching her something new. She used him for her own benefit, to broaden her mind, and develop new skills to trot out at the salons.”

  “She didn’t need Berenson for that,” Pru said. “She was friends with Monet! Degas! Name your artist! No, the Old Masters enthusiasm was a ruse to spend time with Berenson. You can tell by the way she says his name. She’s never once insulted his sexual abilities. She’s insulted Proust’s and he was gay!”

  “You’re living in too many novels, sweet Pru. Those two were eons apart in age. Almost fifteen years.”

  The same amount of years, as it happened, between Win and Pru.

  “Wasn’t Sunny eleven years older?” she asked. “And they got married.”

  “To resounding success.”

  “I don’t see what age has to do with it. You’ve heard the snide way she speaks about Berenson’s wife even though they were once friends. She doesn’t do that with Coon and Coon was married to the duke!”

  “Coon never tried to crowd her spotlight,” Win said. “If she had, well, she would’ve been done for. You and I, case in point. Not until she found you in my bed did Mrs. Spencer begin to entertain my queries. She’d rather give me attention than allow my attention to wander to you.”

  Pru blanched.

  Attention? Was Win giving her “attention”? It’d been so long Pru didn’t even know what romantic interest was supposed to look like when it flashed on her.

  “Your mere presence incensed the lady of the manor,” Win said. “She needs to be the nucleus of everything, not outshone by some runabout, confused American girl.”

  “Hmm.” Pru smiled tightly. “I don’t know that I’m confused. Or runabout. And didn’t you just finish telling me that there was nothing between her and Berenson because of the fifteen-year gap? Or are you saying that you’re closer to Mrs. Spencer’s age than that?”

  “Hilarious. Yes. I’m in my late eighties. My liver looks like it in any case.”

  “Even if I agreed with your hypothesis,” she said, “that she viewed me as competition, what would a ninety-year-old woman care about snaring a young man’s appreciation? I use the term ‘young’ loosely, of course.”

  “Of course! You see, Miss Valentine, that’s the problem with getting old. Your body changes but your heart does not. Lady M wants the same things that she always has.”

  “Mostly I think you like to fancy yourself the center of romantic intrigue.”

  Win dropped his head back and laughed.

  “Oh, my new friend,” he said. “You’ll make this endeavor worthwhile, no matter what I manage to wheedle from Mrs. Spencer.”

  Suddenly, Win grabbed for her hand. The effect was far more startling than any gunshot that had ever echoed across the property. As his hand beat inside of hers, Pru took in a sharp breath, hoping he didn’t hear the gasp that escaped her mouth.

  “Come,” he said. “Come inside with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

  Speechless, Pru allowed herself to be pulled along across the heather and thyme. As they went, she squinted toward Mrs. Spencer’s bedroom. The wet dogs would be okay for a little while.

  Then suddenly she noticed movement in the window. Pru blinked once, and then a second time. She looked down to navigate a series of fallen logs. When she glanced up again, Pru could’ve sworn she saw Mrs. Spencer’s flinty stare shimmering against the glass.

  Forty-six

  THE GRAND DINING HALL

  CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

  JANUARY 1973

  “You wanted to show me the dining room?” Pru said. “Thanks but I’ve seen it approximately nine hundred times, mos
tly while carrying wet dog.”

  As they stood in the doorway, Win slipped his hands from hers. Pru tried not to frown. It was probably for the best. Mrs. Spencer would throw a wobbler if she witnessed bona fide physical contact between them. And she would be down, any minute now.

  “I should be getting back…” Pru started.

  “Shh! Just hold on a moment. First, this is not a mere dining room. It’s the Grand Dining Hall.”

  He pointed to a placard above the door frame.

  “Can’t you see?”

  “Grand,” Pru said. “That’s a stretch.”

  The room wasn’t small, but neither was it “grand.” In it was a dining table that somehow seemed too narrow and too large for the space simultaneously. Around the table was seating for exactly four guests, provided they were of small-to-medium build and one guest didn’t mind a stool.

  “I’ll allow that the room itself is not particularly impressive,” Win said. “But that.” He pointed to the portrait above the fireplace. “That is a masterpiece.”

  “Is it…?” Pru took several steps closer. “Is that Mrs. Spencer?”

  She’d walked past the painting countless times over the last few months. The Grand Dining Hall was an excellent shortcut between the kitchen and the nesting places of several packs of pups. The painting was sublime, yes, but it had never occurred to Pru that the woman was the same one who motored through town wild-haired, demon-eyed, and screaming at children.

  “It is the duchess herself,” Win said. “Or Mrs. Spencer, if you please.”

  The portrait was a flare of color, a winter’s sunset of pinks and silver and white. In it Gladys Deacon sat on an upholstered bench, the cushion dipping beneath her. She wore a dress of pink organza, off-the-shoulder, with roses tumbling down the front. Her hair was pulled back in finger waves and secured at the nape of her neck. She rested against a pink pillow, white and black feathers splayed out behind her. The hint of birds, Pru thought with a droll smile. How appropriate.

  “She’s stunning.” Pru felt a little breathless.

  If the portrait was any indication, the duchess was the fetchingest woman of her time, just as Mrs. Spencer always claimed.

  “Stunning she is,” Win agreed. “The artist is Giovanni Boldini, the most famous portraitist of his day. They called him the Master of Swish due to the grace of his brushstrokes.”

  “I can see why. The painting moves, as though she’s alive. I can almost hear her talking to someone off frame.”

  “The man was gifted,” Win said. “Though he had the choicest subjects to work with. Boldini and John Singer Sargent painted all the stunners of the Belle Époque. Sargent sketched Gladys Deacon numerous times, but ultimately never painted the duchess for fear of not being able to capture her true beauty.”

  “So Boldini was more of a risk-taker, then?” Pru asked.

  “That, or he was hoping for a good shag. The man was a known cad.” Win gave Pru a quick wink. “Boldini painted Coon, too. The duke was furious both times but had to allow it. A Boldini portrait was a mark of social standing.”

  Win took a few steps closer to the painting. He studied it for a minute as he ran his hand along a crevice on the wall.

  “She was a fine-looking broad,” he said.

  So this was Mrs. Spencer. Beneath it all, behind the guns and the spaniels, she was a young woman, painted by a celebrated artist, looking toward some nameless companion elsewhere in the room.

  “What is going on with this wall?” Win mumbled, still pushing against the crack. “I hope this room doesn’t split in two.”

  “Or the house,” Pru said. “Do you think it’s her, Seton? Really her?”

  Win peered over his shoulder.

  “Of course it is! Look at the color of the eyes, the shape of her nose. Can’t you tell?”

  Pru nodded.

  “Yes. I suppose I can.”

  Win lifted his hand from the wall. He took a step back.

  “You’re looking well, Lady Marlborough,” he said and took a deep bow. “As always, it’s a pleasure to see you.”

  He turned and took a seat at the table

  “Sit.” He patted the chair beside him. “Have a rest.”

  Pru nodded and followed his lead, all the while surreptitiously eyeing the door. Surely Mrs. Spencer would barrel through at any second. She’d yell at Pru for not doing her work, and at the biographer for not doing his.

  “Where do you go from here, Miss Valentine?” Win asked.

  “How’s that?”

  “After you leave the Grange? Where shall you go?”

  Pru cackled, though she was not especially amused.

  “What a question,” she said.

  The embarrassing truth was that Pru had no idea where she’d go. This was her world now, as unglamorous and unkempt as it was. Given Mrs. Spencer could die at any time, life at the Grange was also fleeting. Where did she go from there, indeed.

  “So you don’t know where you’re headed, either,” he said with a smirk. “Join the club.”

  “No. I do. I’ll, uh, return stateside.”

  “Where, though? Rumor has it America is fairly expansive.”

  “East Coast,” Pru mumbled.

  It sounded right, for the most part. California seemed an impossibly far journey, in more ways than one. On the other hand, Boston was unthinkable too.

  “New York maybe,” she added.

  “Sounds like you have it well thought out.”

  “Yes, plans like mesh.” Pru locked her fingers together. “I should be leading armies with my tightly constructed agenda.”

  Armies. Pru dropped her hands as she felt a jab in her ribs, like a long-ago injury acting up. She hadn’t thought about Charlie in a while. Or if she had, it was only for a moment. If and when she returned to the States, would he once again infiltrate her days and leak into her dreams?

  Pru began to feel a little sick.

  “Is everything all right, Miss Valentine? You look pale.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fab. And what about you?” she said quickly.

  Go away, Charlie. Go the hell away.

  “Will you go back to London?” she asked. “Is that your home?”

  Win shrugged.

  “I have a place in London, yes, a flat I share with two cousins. We also have a family home on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. Not sure on which doorstep I’ll eventually find myself.”

  “Maybe whichever is closest to your publisher?” she said.

  “Come again?”

  “Or your editor.” Pru pointed toward the painting. “For the biography? Once you finish writing, I imagine you’d want to be near your publishing house. Or does location not matter? I don’t know how it works.”

  “Uh…” He snickered bitterly. “As luck would have it, neither do I.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said, trying to appear chipper. “Once your book is a smash hit and you ascend to literati status you’ll need to be where you can hobnob with other writers and visit all the best salons. Just ask Mrs. Spencer.”

  “Lord, other writers. That doesn’t sound fun at all.”

  “So you don’t know where you’re going, either,” Pru said. “Excellent. I don’t feel as bad about my complete lack of direction.”

  “Blimey, never use this old goat as a barometer for ambition and drive. Of all the bars mine’s the lowest. It’s very nearly on the ground.”

  “But think of how happy you’ll be,” she said. “Once you finish writing and release Gladys Deacon out into the universe.”

  “Will I be, though? It’s funny … I … I…” He stuttered. “I’ve been chasing this dream for so long, I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever actually catch it.”

  For the better part of twenty years, Win believed everything would be different once he wrote the book, just as Pru said. But would anything truly change? What was a book but a person’s words, read by a few more persons? Once Win accomplished that, would it put his fam
ily’s misgivings to bed, to speak nothing of the misgivings he had about himself?

  “What do you mean ‘if’?” Pru asked. “You will catch it. And when you do, you’ll hang on and ride that accomplishment as far as it can take you. I’ll be the very first person in line to buy the book, and all the books that follow. I’ll brag that I knew you when.”

  “Yes, but what if it turns out…”

  He stared up at Gladys Deacon, who appeared skeptical amid the feathers and pink. You people are lost causes, aren’t you? she seemed to say. The saddest crew I ever saw.

  “What if this thing,” Win said, “this thing that I’ve wanted since eternity, what if I don’t want it in the end?”

  “Well, then you try to discover what it is you’re really after.”

  Win turned and locked eyes with her. Pru felt herself warm under his gaze.

  “Actually, I have a better idea,” he said. “How ’bout this? How ’bout we hang around here until Mrs. Spencer passes? Then we’ll continue on after she’s bought the farm. The dogs will keep breeding into perpetuity, no doubt. Someone should look after them. I can write from anywhere.”

  “Seton, you’re bonkers! Mrs. Spencer isn’t going to let us stay at the Grange without her. She barely tolerates us now!”

  “But she’ll never know!” Win said. “A benefit of being dead. Unless she haunts us, that is.”

  “Which she undoubtedly would.”

  “Listen, it’ll work like this,” Win said. “After she’s gone, we’ll just very quietly … not leave. If anyone shows up we’ll claim squatters’ rights. Who’d want this old flea motel anyway? We’ll while out our days bobbling about with no concrete plans of any kind. Just how it suits us.”

  Pru smiled.

  “That doesn’t sound half bad,” she said.

  “It doesn’t sound even a little bad.”

  Win stood. His knees crackled on the way up.

  “Although,” he said, walking toward the door. He stopped, then looked again at Pru. “I guess we need to take heed, be careful what we wish for and all that.”

  “What’s wrong with a little wishing?”

  “Miss Valentine, don’t you see? Wishing is probably what landed us both in these messes to start.”