Brilliance

by Rosalind Laker

  As the cab passed the Grand Cafe she saw that not only was there a great number of people waiting outside, but also another enthusiastic audience was streaming out. She was seeing how it would be in the future at every venue where these moving pictures were shown.

  ‘The Lumières are going to make another fortune,’ Michel remarked, ‘because – as Monsieur Lumière told us – apart from making films they are already manufacturing the cameras to sell at an affordable price. There will soon be a worldwide market for them.’

  In the Louvre they came to the almost deserted gallery where the Mona Lisa hung on the wall, allowed only a moderate amount of space among other pictures. Michel glanced at Lisette, who was gazing at it somewhat absently.

  ‘You have the same kind of smile on your lips, Lisette. As if you’re amused by some secret that I know nothing about.’

  ‘Why ever should you think that?’ she asked evasively.

  She had visited the Mona Lisa several times in the past with her father, and her thoughts had not been with the glorious masterpiece, but were dwelling instead on Daniel’s audaciousness. Neither could she crush down a hunger to see him just once more.

  That night she and Michel were quite late back to the hotel, having been to the opera and had supper afterwards. He kissed her with barely controlled passion at her door, his embrace crushing her against his taut body.

  ‘Lisette,’ he implored, ‘let me stay with you a while longer.’

  ‘No, Michel,’ she answered determinedly, afraid that his feelings would make him thrust himself into the room with her. ‘We’ll say goodnight here.’

  He was too afraid of losing her through any false move and forced himself to let her go unhindered into her room. As she closed the door she leaned against it in distress. She would have to end her association with him. It was not right that he should keep hoping that she would change her mind, which she knew for certain now – after meeting Daniel again – would never happen.

  She gave a start a few minutes later as the gilded telephone gave a little ring. It could only be Michel phoning her from his room. With a sigh she took up the telephone receiver from its elegant cradle. But it was Daniel who spoke.

  ‘Come downstairs. I’ll be waiting in the lobby.’

  Afterwards she wondered why she had not refused, but instead she snatched up the cape she had discarded and left the room. The lift was at an upper floor and she did not wait for it, but almost ran down the curving flight of red-carpeted stairs, her cape rippling out behind her. She sighted him before he saw her and paused, questioning her wisdom for a moment in coming to meet him. He was waiting amid the potted palm trees and the marble columns. Music from the orchestra in the restaurant was drifting through a pair of open doors. Then she took a deep breath and continued down the flight at a slower pace.

  His face lit up when he saw her and he came forward to meet her as she reached the bottom stair.

  ‘However did you know I was here?’ she asked.

  He gave a quiet laugh. ‘I phoned the five most expensive hotels in Paris. I was sure Michel would have booked in at one of them.’

  She smiled, shaking her head. ‘I should have known you would find me again.’

  He took her hand. ‘We don’t want to talk here. I know just the place.’

  It was a cafe in Montmartre, not far from the Moulin Rouge, with its walls hung with paintings given by artists in lieu of payment for drink and food. Although noisy with chatter and laughter, its alcoves with the wooden tables and benches nevertheless gave individual privacy. Daniel ordered wine for them both and continued to hold her hand across the table.

  ‘I had to talk to you on your own,’ he began. ‘You’re not seriously involved with that fellow, are you?’

  ‘If you are referring to Michel, the answer is no,’ she replied frankly, ‘but neither do I intend to complicate my life with anyone else.’

  ‘Meaning me?’ He had laughter in his eyes.

  ‘Most especially you, Daniel!’

  He raised his glass, the red wine glowing. ‘Let’s drink to your change of mind.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘We’ll drink instead to your success.’

  He shrugged, still smiling as he drank with her before setting his glass down again. ‘You could easily travel to England with me tomorrow. After all, you must have a friend who would pack up your belongings and send them on to you.’

  She sighed, sitting back in her chair. ‘Think sensibly now. The last time we met you saw for yourself that I have settled in the one place in the world where I most want to be. It won’t be long now before I inherit my grandmother’s house and my independence will be permanently secured. There is nothing you could offer me that would make me change my mind.’

  He gazed at her seriously for a few moments before he spoke in a lowered voice. ‘What of my love for you?’

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘How can you say that? You’re trying another tactic to make me change my mind!’

  He shook his head seriously. ‘Think back to that night in Paris when I came out of that bistro to see a crazy girl wanting to hitch a lift on my cart. I knew in the same instant that you were someone I was going to want in my life.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ she declared fiercely. ‘You couldn’t wait to get rid of me the very next morning. It’s why you mended my bicycle so that there would be no delay in my departure!’

  ‘You were too mixed up to know what you wanted at that point and I have to admit that maybe I wasn’t ready for a change in my life. But through finding each other again in Lyon we have been given another chance.’

  ‘I don’t see our meeting again in that light.’

  He leaned forward and spoke forcefully in a lowered voice. ‘Tell me honestly, Lisette. Do you really believe in your heart that we can part in an hour or two and go separate ways for the rest of our lives?’

  She was unnerved. ‘All you want of me is someone to act for your camera!’

  He sat back and thumped his clenched fists on the table in exasperation. ‘Damnation to that! I needed a means to get you to come away with me and I thought that was the only way I might manage to do it. Although it will be the camera’s loss you need never let it see your face if that’s what you want! All I know is that I can’t live the rest of my life without you!’

  Her expressive eyes gave away her own feelings for him. ‘I don’t think I would want that to happen,’ she admitted quietly.

  Suddenly they smiled slowly at each other. ‘I love you, Lisette,’ he said softly, taking up her hands and kissing her fingers, his unswerving gaze holding hers. ‘I have done from the start. Spend the night with me. We can stay here. No questions will be asked.’

  Her eyes had widened, but more with anticipation than surprise. She accepted now in her own mind that he was the reason why she had been determined to get to Paris for the Lumière premiere. Certain that he would keep his word and be there, she had wanted to see him again with a longing she had been unable to subdue. Just one more time, she had told herself, and then that would be an end to it. Michel’s presence was to have been her protection, her insurance against Daniel’s persuasion to get her into his motion pictures, and above all a barrier against any amorous advances on his part. Instead she had thrown that defence away and was allowing herself to be swept away by her own passionate feelings, which she seemed unable to stem.

  She found her voice. ‘I believe my whole life has been directed towards this moment.’

  ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘For me, too.’

  ‘I have something to tell you, Daniel.’

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, his eyes full of love.

  ‘Later,’ she said.

  They rose from the table and he put an arm about her waist. He took a key from the landlord’s wife and together they went up the narrow staircase to a garret room, which was warmed by some ugly pipes passing through it. There was a wide iron bedstead with clean sheets and a harlequin-patterned cover, a few s
ticks of furniture and a faded rag rug on the floor, all softened visually by a candle-lamp. Lisette turned in the circle of Daniel’s arm and they kissed long and deeply.

  They made love most of the night in the candle-lamp’s glow, their naked bodies glimmering and constantly entwined in passion as well as in more restful moments when they murmured love words or else dozed briefly. It was all as she had remembered between them, enriched by the maturing of her love for him in these blissful hours.

  It was early morning with the clatter of Paris stirring again as she woke to Daniel’s caresses.

  ‘You’re so lovely,’ he breathed. ‘Every single beautiful part of you is beyond belief.’

  She cupped her hand against his face. ‘Hold me now. It’s time for me to tell what you have a right to know.’

  ‘Yes?’ He scooped her to him. ‘You can tell me anything, my lovely Lisette.’

  ‘Think back to when after making love I left you that day by the cornfield. It wasn’t long afterwards that I discovered I was pregnant.’

  For a matter of seconds he stared at her in astonishment, leaning back to look full into her face, before he spoke with quiet joy. ‘We have a child! A boy? Or a girl?’

  ‘A daughter. I named her Marie-Louise, but she was taken away from me for adoption.’

  ‘Adoption?’ His eyes narrowed in shock and he almost shouted. ‘You let her go? Why?’

  He listened intently as she told him all that had taken place. Then she turned her head away from him in her distress, not knowing how he would react. ‘I think of her all the time,’ she said brokenly. ‘Her adoptive parents took her to America.’

  His arms enclosed her more tightly and his voice was heavy with sadness. ‘Oh, my love! If only I had known where you were! Then you would never have gone through that terrible time and our child would have been with us now.’

  ‘Forgive me, Daniel,’ she implored.

  Gently he tilted her face to his. ‘It was no fault of yours! You would never have let our child go if it had been within your power to prevent it. I should have been with you! Then it would never have happened.’

  They clung to each other in consolation until he took her again with such tenderness and adoration that she wept with joy at his loving.

  Back at her hotel Daniel saw her into the spacious lobby. The hour was still early and there were only a few people about. They faced each other.

  ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ he said.

  She nodded. Both of them were aware that she had made what was to her a momentous decision. Then he kissed her long and hard before returning to the waiting cab that had brought them to the hotel. He continued on to the railway station.

  Turning, she crossed over to the desk and collected her key. Then she went to the lift and rode up in its glided cage to reach her room. Entering, she passed the bed where the sheet was still turned down for her from the night before and went to the window to look out at the avenue below, which was swinging into life.

  She and Daniel had made their plans, although his disappointment was intense when she had refused to leave for England with him that day. Neither could she give him a definite date as to when she would join him.

  ‘I’ll lose you again!’ he had protested wildly.

  ‘No, you won’t.’ She had put a finger against his lips to calm him. ‘But I have commitments I must fulfil before I leave Lyon. There is the month’s notice I must give the Lumière management, the solo I’m to sing in the choral society concert next month and six weeks later I have the lead in a new play for the amateur dramatic society. I can’t let these people down.’ She had taken his anxious face between her hands. ‘Then I’ll come to you, but not to be idle.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll want to work. I can either do your bookkeeping or – if you buy one of these recently invented typewriting machines – I can type scripts for you. Anything as long as I’m useful to your projects.’

  Neither of them had mentioned film acting again. He knew it was work she did not want. ‘There will be plenty to keep you occupied,’ he had promised. All that mattered to him was that she should be with him.

  Leaving the window, Lisette removed her evening clothes and took a hot bath. Afterwards she packed, for although she and Michel were to have another day and night in Paris it would not be fair to him to stay any longer.

  At eight thirty Michel came to take her down to breakfast. He was surprised to see her luggage standing ready. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘We’re not leaving today.’

  ‘But I am, Michel,’ she replied quietly.

  He turned pale in a burst of anger. ‘It’s that motion picture maker, isn’t it? He’s the reason!’

  ‘I think he has always been between us. Ever since I first met him. In a couple of months when I’m free of all my obligations I intend to join him in England.’

  ‘You can’t do that! You would be throwing away all you’ve wanted ever since you came back to Lyon.’

  ‘I realize now that Daniel was all I ever wanted.’

  Michel accompanied her back to Lyon, but his attitude towards her was icy and both of them were silent most of the time. At her door he bowed very formally over her hand, but turned away without speaking. She knew he would never forgive her.

  It was late March before Lisette had fulfilled all her obligations. The Lumières in their generous way gave a farewell party for her and other friends did the same. She received a number of gifts to take with her. To her surprise and pleasure Michel called on her with flowers two days before her departure.

  ‘I wanted to wish you well, Lisette.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ she replied genuinely as she took the flowers from him. ‘Does this mean that we are still friends?’

  ‘Yes. It also means I’ll be waiting for you when you find that England is not the place for you.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll be back to visit, that’s all.’

  He smiled. ‘We’ll see. Time with tell. Au revoir, Lisette.’

  On her last day in Lyon she went to the gates of the Bellecour house and stood looking through at it.

  ‘I’ll come back when you’re mine,’ she promised in a whisper. ‘You’ll always be my true home no matter where I go in the world.’

  She did not want any of her friends to see her off on the train when the morning of her departure came, saying that she did not like farewells in railway stations. She had a special reason for wanting to depart alone, because unbeknown to anyone else she was not going direct to the coast as everyone supposed. Instead she took a ticket to the little town where she had given birth to her daughter. It had been Daniel’s suggestion that they should try to get some clue to their baby’s exact whereabouts. He had wanted to call on the convent himself, but she had thought it better that she should go there alone.

  Memories flooded back as she lifted the heavy knocker on the convent door and banged it twice. A nun she had never seen before opened the door to her.

  ‘Yes, mademoiselle?’

  ‘I should like to see the abbess.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘It is a private matter.’

  The nun narrowed her eyes. ‘She is at her devotions and cannot be disturbed. I can deal with anything you wish.’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll wait.’

  The nun stood aside for her. As Lisette entered she saw to her relief that Sister Delphine was passing through the hallway and called eagerly to her. Immediately the old nun smiled and came forward, recognizing her as she came nearer.

  ‘It’s Lisette! How are you, child?’

  ‘So glad to see you! I’m on my way to England, but I could not leave without coming to ask about my baby. Is there any news of her?’

  Sister Delphine waved the other nun away, indicating that she herself would deal with this enquiry. They sat down together on the hall seat and she took hold of Lisette’s hand. ‘You were told at the time that when a baby is adopted from here there is no follow up
as the responsibility of the convent is at an end. Be content in remembering that your daughter went to a good couple and take comfort from that. Do not torment yourself any further by cherishing false hopes of some enlightment.’

  ‘Has nothing been heard from Madame de Vincent? She seemed to have some knowledge of the couple who took my baby.’

  ‘We have never received a word from her.’ Sister Delphine patted Lisette’s hand, trying to comfort her, even though the young woman’s stark expression showed that she had seen her last hope destroyed.

  With a heavy heart Lisette left the convent, trying to face the harsh fact that the child she kept in her heart and mind was lost to her for ever.

  Sixteen

  There was rough weather on the April day when Lisette crossed the Channel. She did not go below deck, wanting to see for the first time the white cliffs of Dover at close hand. If she still had doubts about her wisdom in leaving France, especially since she had only to wait until her twenty-first birthday in January next year to inherit the Bellecour house, she crushed them down. She wanted to be with Daniel whatever the cost to herself in homesickness, which she guessed would be inevitable.

  As she sat in her deckchair, wrapped in a plaid rug that had been provided by one of the stewards, she watched other hardy passengers lurch their way along as they held on to the rails. She thought about the joyful letters from Daniel that she had received, many showing the haste with which they had been written as if he hardly had a moment to spare, which was probably the truth of it. He had given many successful cinematograph shows in London and elsewhere, receiving the same acclaim as had the Lumière films in Paris. Yet he was not alone in his venture. In the short time since that great Paris occasion many other operators had started making motion pictures and presenting the results, not only in England but also in the United States and many other parts of the world, even as far away as China. Some used Lumière cameras while others had similar inventions of their own. It was like a great flowering all over the globe.

  When the steamer docked Lisette tucked the wind-blown strands of her hair back under her hat and then saw Daniel waving to her from the dockside. She was soon through the customs shed and in his arms.