Moonlight Over Paris

by Jennifer Robson

  “It was here when we bought the place,” Gerald explained. “The fellow who owned the villa before us was a diplomat, and every time he traveled he brought back something exotic. We’ll have to do some pruning and weeding, but not much of either.”

  Gerald had set up a studio at the hotel, too, for art was as vital to him as the air he breathed. He had begun a painting he hoped to exhibit at the Salon des Indépendants the following spring, a huge canvas that portrayed a disassembled watch, or perhaps clockworks; it was hard to tell at such an early stage.

  At the end of August she packed up her things and bid a fond farewell to the Murphys, who wouldn’t be returning to Paris until later that autumn, and even then would be living in St.-Cloud, a suburb on the outskirts of the city.

  “It’s too far for visits during the week,” Sara advised, “but you can always visit on the weekend. Besides, we’ll be at our apartment on the quai des Grands Augustins often enough—at least once a month, if not more.”

  VINCENT WAS WAITING at the Gare de Lyon when her overnight train arrived, not far past dawn, on the first of September.

  “Good morning, Vincent. How are you?”

  “I am well, Lady Helena. This way, please.”

  It was more than he’d ever said to her before; perhaps the man was warming up to her. Or perhaps she had worn him down. Either way, she was almost certain she caught him smiling, though only a little, as he bent to collect her valise.

  It was only a short drive to her aunt’s home, a grand old town house at the western end of the Île St.-Louis. She hadn’t visited since before the war, but the exterior hadn’t changed at all, nor had the neighborhood.

  Vincent went to park the car in the old stables, and rather than walk back through the gates to the front, Helena went in through the side door. “Hello!” she called out. “Auntie A? Are you up?”

  She walked the length of the main floor, popping her head into its various reception rooms—all empty. They’d been redecorated in an elegant but rather clinical contemporary style since she’d seen them last, in startling contrast to the faded and faintly shabby grandeur of the house itself. She walked upstairs, to the first floor with its bedrooms, calling out for her aunt as she went.

  “Auntie A? Hello?”

  “Helena? But you’re early! Do come in—I’m at the end of the hall.”

  Agnes was sitting up in bed, the morning’s newspapers scattered around her, wearing a silk and lace bedgown that was more confectionery than garment. Her breakfast of buttered toast and chocolat chaud sat on a japanned tray at her side, and Hamish, snoring loudly, was sprawled across the bed’s embroidered silk coverlet.

  “Helena, my dear! I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour at the least.”

  Helena sat on the edge of the bed, rather a feat as it was impossibly high, and deposited a kiss on her aunt’s cheek.

  “How was your journey? How are you?” Agnes asked.

  “Very well. How was St.-Malo?”

  “Exceedingly tiresome, I’m afraid. Crammed with sad old bores, and the weather was frightful. I really ought to have stayed with you in Antibes. Are you hungry? Do you want any breakfast?”

  “No, thank you. They fed me on the train.”

  “I thought I’d let you choose your room. Not the blue room, though—it smells of damp.”

  “I suppose it can’t be helped when one lives so close to the river.”

  Agnes sighed dramatically. “My dear, if you only knew how many tears I have shed over this ruin of a house. It costs the earth to maintain, and every time it rains there is water in the sous-sol. I would leave, but dear Dimitri and I were so happy here. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “But I thought . . . I thought you were only married for a few months before he died.”

  “Yes, my dear, but we lived here together for nearly ten years before that. Such a happy time.”

  Helena had always known her aunt was unconventional, but this was astonishing news. “You did? I had no idea . . . I mean, Mama never said a thing.”

  “Of course she didn’t. She and your father were horrified. But love is love, and we weren’t about to be parted simply because his wife wouldn’t divorce him. Horrid woman.”

  Helena’s head was reeling. “Is that why you never visited? Never introduced him?”

  “Yes, but let’s not talk of all that. So disheartening to think about. And I made my peace with your parents ages ago. Now you go along and choose a bedroom while I finish my petit déjeuner. Once I’m dressed we can go for a walk and talk about everything I missed when I was away.”

  The bedroom next to her aunt’s was grandly furnished, all burnished walnut and quilted satin coverlets, and was clearly the best of the guest rooms; she would never sleep well there. The next room along was nearly as bad, but the last—perhaps it had been reserved, once, for a maiden aunt or some other overlooked relation—was perfect.

  It was furnished with the simple neoclassical pieces of a hundred years before, now sadly out of fashion but much more to her taste than modern furniture. Two tall windows offered a pretty view of the central courtyard, with its arching plane trees and manicured flower beds. She opened the window nearest to the door and, leaning on the wrought-iron balustrade, let the beauty of the city seep into her bones.

  She stood at the window and thought of her aunt and Dimitri, and understood, at last, the reason she’d seen so little of her aunt when she was younger. The reason that Agnes had never come to visit her family in England, and had never introduced Dimitri until after their marriage.

  Their lives, if they’d lived in England, would have been unendurable. Would have been made unendurable, she corrected herself. They would have been outcasts, the object of pity, scorn, and contempt. No one would have received them, their own families included. But they had been happy together in France.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK, on the Friday before term began, Agnes greeted Helena with an announcement at breakfast.

  “I think it is time for you to experience your first Paris salon. I’ve just had a note from Natalie Barney, and she’s back from Normandy a little early this year. Such a fascinating woman, and friends with everyone in Paris.”

  “What happens at her salon?”

  “Not much of anything, to be perfectly honest, but that’s why I like it. One goes for the company, and of course the delicious food, and she keeps any attendant folderol to a minimum. Some obscure poet might recite a few lines from his or her newest work, but that will be the sum of it.”

  “What time does it begin?”

  “Around four o’clock. You’ll want to wear something chic—your frock with the broderie anglaise will do. Oh, we shall have such fun!”

  Vincent drove them to Miss Barney’s house on the rue Jacob, although it was scarcely a mile away, and after parking the car on the street he escorted them to a set of green doors, wide and high enough for a carriage to pass through. Beyond was a cobbled courtyard, rather overgrown with moss, a small and very pretty pavilion, and, astonishingly, a grove of chestnut trees. Here in the heart of Paris, where trees were ruthlessly pollarded, and where they were expected to grow in straight lines flanking straight boulevards, a remnant of wild and ancient forest had somehow survived.

  “Such a surprise,” she murmured.

  “The trees?” Agnes asked. “Or the temple?”

  And there it was, a perfect, tiny, classical temple, its pediment supported by four Doric columns. “Natalie calls it her ‘temple of friendship,’” Agnes explained. “It can’t be any older than the pavilion itself, but it does look impressive, doesn’t it?”

  It had begun to rain, so they hurried to enter the pavilion. At the door, greeting Miss Barney’s guests, was an elderly Chinese butler, who smiled and ushered them along. They walked to the end of a narrow, dark hall and moved into a large room, already so crowded with guests that Helena could discern little of its décor beyond the closely hung prints and portraits on the faded red walls. The light in the room
was faintly green, tinted by the overarching boughs of the chestnut trees outside, and what few lights there were did little to dispel the late afternoon gloom.

  “Agnes, my friend. You’re here!” A woman approached them, her smile ready and genuine; it could only be Miss Barney. She might have been any age between thirty and fifty, for she had a beautiful, unlined complexion, and her chin-length hair was either blond or silver; in the dim light of the sitting room it was difficult to tell.

  “Of course,” Agnes replied gaily. “When have I ever refused one of your summons?”

  “And is this your niece?” Miss Barney asked.

  “Yes, indeed. Helena, allow me to introduce you to Miss Natalie Barney. Natalie, this is my niece, Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr.”

  Helena suppressed a sudden urge to curtsey, for there was something terribly regal about their hostess, and instead shook her outstretched hand. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Barney. Thank you for including me in your invitation.”

  “It is entirely my pleasure, I assure you. Agnes tells me you are an artist.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve come to Paris to attend classes at the Académie Czerny.”

  “I see, I see. Excellent school. Fabritius does have an eye for talent. You’ll do well with him. We must talk some more—I can think of any number of people you ought to meet. Do excuse me; I must say hello to some people.”

  And with that she was gone, her attention drawn by the arrival of another group of guests.

  “There. You have met the grande dame herself. Now, shall we have something to eat? We just need to squeeze past these people here.”

  Agnes looped her arm through Helena’s and steered them toward the dining room, and as they made their way through the crush of people, nearly all of them women, she put names to faces for her niece’s benefit.

  “That’s Djuna Barnes, I think; haven’t seen her here before. Can’t remember where I first met her. And there, with the Valentino look-alike, is Colette—yes, the Colette. Hasn’t written anything worth reading in years, but she does add a certain spark to these affairs. That’s Lily Gramont, the duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre; she’s one of Natalie’s dearest friends. No sign of Romaine Brooks today, but that’s no surprise. Let me see . . . the women over there, the ones in the awful suits? They’re Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier. Miss Beach owns Shakespeare and Company, the English-language bookshop. She published Joyce’s Ulysses when no one else would touch it. Ah—here we are. No one feeds her guests as handsomely as Natalie.”

  The table before them was tiled with tray after tray of cucumber sandwiches, éclairs, meringues, almond tuiles, and palmier biscuits. Helena filled a plate, accepted a cup of tea, and followed Agnes to a relatively uncrowded corner of the dining room.

  “As soon as we’ve eaten I’ll take you round and introduce you properly,” her aunt promised, and once they’d emptied their plates Agnes took her arm and led Helena on a tour of the salon and its sophisticated guests.

  Nearly all the conversation was in English, for almost everyone was American or English, and though she could have taken part Helena simply stood and listened to the discussions of poetry and fiction and art and dance that swirled around her.

  They left after an hour, in concordance with her aunt’s theory that one must always leave a party when everyone is at their most amusing, and after thanking Miss Barney and promising to come again, they left the hidden courtyard behind and found Vincent waiting with the car.

  “What did you think of Natalie and her friends?” Agnes asked immediately.

  “I liked them, very much. They were all so interesting, and their conversations were interesting, too. None of the usual drivel about husbands and quarterly allowances and problems with the help.”

  “That’s because none of them have husbands, or if they do the men are just window dressing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Natalie and her circle are nearly all of them lesbians.” Agnes let her words sink in, and then, a frown creasing her brow, turned to look Helena in the eye. “You aren’t one of those tiresome people who rail against such relationships?”

  “Of . . . of course not,” Helena stammered, more than a little embarrassed by her naïveté. She knew that women might be drawn to other women, just as men might desire other men, but until that afternoon it had been an abstraction, no more real to her than Sappho on her island.

  “I didn’t know it was possible to live so openly,” she added after a moment. “Aren’t Miss Barney and her friends bothered by the police?”

  “Not usually. From time to time the authorities become obsessed with homosexual activity in Pigalle, at places like Chez Graff and the like, but prosecution is rare here. I’m not sure if lesbianism is even considered a criminal offense in France.”

  “I’m glad . . . I mean, I should hate to think of Miss Barney being harassed in any way. She and her friends . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I envy them, that’s all. They were so confident. So assured. I do hope I’ll make friends of my own at school.”

  “Of course you will. Simply keep an open mind and a smile on your face and you’ll be awash in friends in no time.”

  Chapter 8

  Helena arrived at the academy early, that first morning, and dutifully queued for her carte d’étudiant, an horaire, and a shapeless artist’s smock that was far too large for her slight frame.

  “Excuse me,” she called out, trying to catch the clerk’s attention. It was no easy task, given the general din in the room and crush of students, all just as eager to be done with their paperwork. “May I exchange this for another size?”

  “One size, Mademoiselle. Next!”

  Rather than make a fuss, and possibly incur the enmity of everyone else in the queue, she retreated to the hallway, and then, finding it full to bursting with yet more students, ventured upstairs. Presumably the timetable she’d received, now rather crumpled, would include details of her classes’ locations as well as their times.

  She walked to the end of the corridor, where it was somewhat less congested, and unfolded the horaire.

  Mlle H. Parr—septembre 1924

  lundi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon

  mardi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon

  mercredi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon

  jeudi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon

  vendredi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon

  They’d made a mistake. In the school’s prospectus, the curriculum for intermediate students had included classes in watercolors, pastels, and oils. No sculpture, which had been a shame, but everything else had definitely been mentioned in the brochure. On her timetable, however, she was only enrolled in one two-hour drawing class each day.

  “Oh, bother,” she muttered. Now she would have to go downstairs and brave the masses again.

  “Is anything the matter?” asked a young man standing nearby. He was dressed in the shabby, informal way that amounted to a uniform among the artists of Montparnasse: a worn and none-too-clean coat, a wrinkled shirt with an open collar, and no hat whatsoever. He was also astonishingly good-looking, with beautiful green eyes and straight brown hair so long that it brushed his shoulders.

  “I think there’s a mistake. I’ve only been signed up for the drawing classes, but I’m sure there—”

  “Turn it over,” he said, smiling. “Voilà. There are the classes for October.”

  Feeling terribly silly, she looked on the reverse of the page, and there it was:

  Mlle H. Parr—octobre 1924

  lundi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon; 13 h à 15 h, pastels, salon B

  mardi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon; 13 h à 15 h, aquarelles, salon C

  mercredi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon; 13 h à 15 h, pastels, salon B

  jeudi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin, grand salon; 13 h à 15 h, aquarelles, salon C

  vendredi, 10 h à 12 h, dessin à modèle vivant, gr
and salon

  “Thank you. I was worried I’d have to go downstairs and join the queue again.”

  “And that is a fate worse than death, hmm?”

  “Nearly. How do you do?” she asked, remembering her manners. “I’m Helena Parr.”

  “And I am Étienne Moreau, and very pleased to make your acquaintance.” He had a lovely voice, his accent just noticeable enough to make everything he said sound charming. Smiling again, he shook her outstretched hand. “Shall we go in?”

  Behind them, halfway down the corridor, students were streaming through a set of open doors. Her first class was beginning.

  The grand salon was a large but not enormous room, and most of its space was taken up by sets of easels and stools, around forty in total. At its front was a low platform about five feet square and half as high. Light streamed in from a huge bank of windows; even on a dull day, she saw, the salon would be bright enough for work without artificial light.

  Mr. Moreau took a spot on the left side of the salon, near the back, and she sat next to him, her heart pounding. She had never been given to attacks of nerves before, so why was she so anxious now?

  “Courage,” her new friend whispered, using the French pronunciation. “And put on your smock. We’re using charcoal today, and you don’t want to ruin your clothes. Shall I help you roll back the sleeves?”

  “I think I can manage, but thank you.”

  “Excuse me, but is this seat taken?” A young woman, American by her accent, now stood by the last stool and easel in their row.

  “It isn’t—please do take it.”

  “Thank you so much. I galloped nearly all the way here,” she said, rummaging through her handbag, “and I was late all the same.” Finding a handkerchief, she patted invisible drops of perspiration from her brow. “Thank heavens I got here in time. Oh—you’re wearing your smock. I’d better put mine on, too. I wish it wasn’t so big.”

  Helena smiled at her, and was about to say something reassuring when she realized that a man had entered the salon and was standing at the front. Rather than ascend the stage, however, he stood next to it, his expression impossible to read.