Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (48 page)

“Half an hour and I’ll be ready to go,” Iris said, getting up hastily. “Just a quick shower and into a pants suit.”

Louisa sighed. “All right, meet me in the lobby. I’ll go down now and give instructions about our flight on Wednesday. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get rooms at the Negresco. But do hurry, dear, it’s almost ten o’clock.” At the door she waved. “Half an hour, mind.”

“You’ve got it.”

• • •

To get to the Chateau de Versailles, one took a little train and rode through a typical French countryside for an hour or so. At the end of that time one was in a small village which seemed strangely unfitting for the magnificent country residence that had once housed one of the most glittering royal courts in the world.

But as Iris and her aunt made their way along a bucolic little street and at last came to a spot where the palace stood behind a massive iron railing that was encrusted with gleaming gilt, it was instantly evident that here was the gateway of one of the illustrious structures of the ages.

Two ponderous gates, parted and layered almost from top to bottom with gold leaf, stood open, and the thunder of horsemen galloping through them seemed more like reality than imagination.

Three kings had lived here, of whom the ill-fated Louis XVI had been the last, and the only one to die a violent death, along with his pretty, feather-headed wife Marie Antoinette. In this place pleasure and debauchery had impoverished the National Treasury, as huge expenditures of francs and gold pieces ran through the hands of King, courtiers and mistresses like sand sifting through an hourglass.

Until the starving masses of France rose in revolt. On October 26, in the year 1879, the great days of Versailles were over. The mobs seized the palace and occupied it. The royal family was taken into custody, and the grim shadow of the guillotine lay over the last Louis to reign there.

The Revolution, though it destroyed many palaces, spared this one, and it was undoubtedly the most important such monument in Europe, and in the world. With its Le Notre gardens, its splashing fountains, its statuary, its enormous dimensions — 2000 feet long — and the overall grace and refinement of its proportions, it presented a picture of unparalleled beauty.

“It’s almost as if there was nothing but that incomparable facade,” Iris breathed. “Or as if it were painted on the sky.”

“Versailles, like Venice, has to be seen to be disbelieved,” her aunt said.

She laughed good-naturedly when Iris began taking pictures. “Postcards will give you better shots, Iris.”

“I know, but it isn’t the same.”

The interior, of course, was a storehouse of riches. The royal bedchambers, the chapel, the Queen’s Staircase, the endless portraits, including Vanloo’s painting of the Sun King, were delights to engage the imagination, and the Hall of Mirrors, where the treaties of two World Wars had been signed, was a place in which to ponder more recent history. The Hall of Mirrors held many secrets.

Outside once more, this time at the rear of the palace, were terraces, tree-shaded walks lined with statues; the vast acres of Versailles spread out for tourists now, its former hedonistic tenantry long dust.

“What next?” Louisa asked Iris.

“The Petit Trianon, of course.”

And of course Louisa, the complete traveler, knew where it was, and they found the place where Marie Antoinette played at being
“une petite bergère”
easily enough.

It was open from two until five, for a fee of three francs, and as it was just short of three-thirty when they reached it there was plenty of time to explore.

So this was where the little German princess came to escape from the routine of court life, Iris mused. Where she put aside the pomp and the circumstance and, in these tranquil surroundings, felt — if only for brief periods — like any pretty, untroubled young girl.

Just a
jeune file ordinaire …

Paul Chandon’s words echoed in Iris’s mind. “Ingenues, not quite grown …”

What happened to men like Paul Chandon? What happened to them when they were old, no longer handsome, no longer virile.

And when even middle-aged women were no longer interested.

“If you want to see the Grand Trianon, we’ll have to hurry,” Louisa finally said.

“No, I won’t bother. I’d really like to stay here until it closes,” Iris said. “I don’t know … somehow this place seems to have a special meaning for me.”

“You once had a doll, which incidentally I gave you, whom you named Marie Antoinette. Do you remember?”

“I remember very well. It was a beautiful doll, bisque, with a lovely flower face and I think real hair that I brushed every day. I’ve always had a fondness for that winsome, pathetic queen, and I almost feel I’ve met her, being here.”

• • •

The ride back on the chugging little train got them to the station at a little after seven. It had been a most bemusing day, and one that had made Iris reflective, even pensive. For the first time she regretted that their hotel had no restaurant. The thought of hastily changing for dinner and then trudging out somewhere was infinitely distasteful.

Apparently her aunt felt the same way.

“Instead of making a production about dinner,” Louisa said, as they got into a taxi outside the station, “why don’t we simply go to the King Charles just as we are, tired and crumpled. And then early to bed, I’d say.”

“Super,” Iris said gratefully. “I’ll have their onion soup and then just some little thing.”

Nor did they spend much time at the restaurant. Each ordered a simple meal and after their coffee they left and walked the short distance back to the Vendôme.

At the desk, the concierge was absent. Louisa rang the small silver bell, but there was still no sign of him.

“There’s mail in our box,” she said. “Iris, would you mind waiting until Guy comes? He’ll have a message about our flight, too. I simply must go up and get out of these shoes.”

“Okay, you go on up. I’ll do the necessary.”

Finally the concierge returned. “I am so sorry,” he apologized. “A little trouble with a maintenance problem.”

He reached in their box and pulled out a letter and some messages. The letter was for Iris. The messages, she saw, were for Louisa. A glance at them showed that they were all from someone named Kitty, apparently one of Louisa’s many friends, who seemed to have phoned at eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock and again at three. Kitty whoever-she-was had left a telephone number for Louisa to call.

“And will you tell Madame Collinge that the flight to Nice is confirmed,” the concierge said. “A three o’clock departure. Also two single rooms with bath at the Negresco Hotel have been reserved.”

“Thank you, I’ll tell her.”

“You had a pleasant day, Mademoiselle?”

“Very. We went to Versailles.”

“You must go to Versailles at night too,” he said. “For the
Son et Lumière.”

“I hope to, Guy. But that will have to wait until our return to Paris.”

Then she remembered. “Oh yes, I must cash some traveler’s checks.”

“Certainly, Mademoiselle.”

She tore three twenty dollar ones from her book of checks and signed them, but the concierge was interrupted by the ring of his phone before he could cash the checks for her.

“Excuse me,” he said, and answered.

Iris leaned her elbows on the counter and waited while he said hello, and then made a connection.

When he hung up he said, smiling, “That was for Madame, your aunt.”

It’s probably the friend who’s been calling her all day, Iris thought, as the concierge handed her some paper money and a few coins.

“Thanks and good-night,” she said. “And now to bed.”

“So early, Mademoiselle?”

“It was a long and tiring day, Guy.”

When she let herself in the suite, her aunt was not in the salon. Her bedroom door was closed, and Iris decided to slip her friend’s messages under the door.

She could hear Louisa’s voice on the phone and had just stooped to slide the three slips of paper under the door when she heard her aunt say, “Yes, of course, Paul, but — ”

Eavesdropping was not one of Iris’s vices. But the next words electrified her. “Our flight’s day after tomorrow, so you’d better wait at least another day. You could take a Wednesday flight.”

It seemed to Iris that her heart had completely turned over. First a big leap in her chest, and then what was like a complete revolution. Her mouth fell open, and she was aware of that too.

After that, she listened shamelessly.

Some of her aunt’s words were lost to her, so that only fragments of the conversation were clear. But the burden of the whole thing was accessible enough.

“The Negresco …”

“Yes, Paul, it’s a risk …”

“You can only carry coincidence so far …”

Then a long silence.

Iris, stunned, fled to her room.

She tried to think, but all her thoughts were jumbled together. She felt paralyzed, unable to move.

So it had come to this …
he
was going too … Paul was following her aunt to the Côte d’Azur.

What else could those words mean?
“You’d better wait at least another day … it’s a risk …”

And …

How
awful
this was … how sordid … that her aunt would …

I can’t
bear
it, she thought … that’s he’s really as bad as I thought. Paul Chandon, who quoted Dickens, and liked the Quai d’Orleans in the very early morning, and for whom she had been feeling sorry because she thought he was going to be left in the lurch.

She heard her aunt’s door open and her name called out. Then a knock at her door.

She took a deep breath and walked across the room. Another deep breath, and then she opened the door.

“Hi,” Louisa said, and saw the letter and the three slips of paper still in Iris’s hand.

“Anything for me?” she asked.

“Yes, some phone messages. Here they are.

“Oh, good,” Louisa said, scanning them. “Kitty and Jim. We had promised to meet if our paths crossed. Yes, I’ll give her a ring right away.”

She looked a little bit upset. “The only thing is … do you think you could manage another day alone tomorrow? I’d like to spend some time with them. What do you think … is it selfish of me?”

It was like a reprieve … that she wouldn’t have to be with her aunt all day tomorrow, knowing what she knew. That everything she had feared was true, that Paul Chandon and her aunt were lovers … or planned to be.

Relief swept over her. Now she would have time to think, think what to
do!

It made it easier for Iris to act naturally, tell Louisa that yes, she would be overjoyed to come and go as she pleased tomorrow and that yes, the flight to Nice had been confirmed and departure time was at three in the afternoon.

“And the hotel?”

“Also okay. Two singles with bath.”

“Wonderful. We seem to be all set. Darling, you’ll have such a good time. I doubt you’ll get in any swimming, though it’s possible the temperatures will be high enough for it. But you can swim any time, and there are far more exciting things to do there.”

“I’m sure there are.”

“So we have that to look forward to. Get a good night’s sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, then.”

“Sleep well.”

In bed Iris lay quiet and sick at heart.

To be involved in these machinations between Louisa and Paul Chandon was so distasteful to her that she felt physically ill. And that her aunt was so blindly infatuated that she would countenance such a thing was unbelievable.

Louisa, after all, planned to spend some months in Europe. Couldn’t she have had the decency to postpone her affair until after her niece had left?

She was afraid of losing him, of course. She was afraid he’d lose interest.

There was one other explanation for Louisa’s behavior, Iris thought, her heart pounding. If her affections for Paul Chandon were so strong, might she not consider
more
than an affair?

There were something like fourteen or fifteen years difference in age between Paul and Louisa. Things like that
could
happen … and sometimes did.

She sat up in bed. No, she thought fiercely. Oh no. Not Louisa. Not
her
aunt. The older wife of a money-hungry man who would bleed her, and bleed her.

There has got to be a way out of all this, Iris decided. She would just have to think of something.

And maddeningly, exhaustingly, all she could think of was that song on the Butte.

And then the next three lines. The first half of the song.

Beyond that, the words refused to come to her.

Quit trying, she exhorted herself. For heaven’s sake, there were
important
things to think about.

But the melody ran through her mind persistently, until she felt she would go mad.

If only they hadn’t met Paul Chandon … and if only she hadn’t heard that damned
song …

Yet even in her dreams, when she finally fell asleep, the song was there, somewhere there, in her troubled mind.

Next morning, after a fitful night of tossing and turning, Iris was greeted by a knock at her door. “May I come in?” her aunt called.

“Please do.”

“Will you forgive me, dear? I called my friend Kitty Sievers and they want me to breakfast with them at the Crillon, where they’re staying. Do you mind?”

“No, of course not.”

Louisa hesitated. “Darling, is it all right if I spend most of the day with them?”

“Certainly. I told you last night that it would be perfectly all right with me. I’m not a child, after all … a child you have to — ”

Her aunt sat down on the edge of the bed. “Is anything the matter?” she asked.

Everything’s the matter, Iris thought bleakly, but forced her face into a reassuring smile.

“Of course not. I just meant … oh, please do have a nice day with your friends. You know very well I’ll find a hundred exciting things to do, particularly since it’s my last day here.”