Brilliance (25 page)

Daniel suggested that the three of them have a glass of wine together to celebrate the Lumière success. Michel felt it would be churlish to refuse and suggested a place he knew that was nearby on the same street. When they were seated at a table in the cafe’s warm and plush interior, Lisette looked across at Daniel, who was sitting opposite her.

‘Now you have seen for yourself that you have every chance of success with your camera too,’ she said, smiling.

Heedless of Michel’s presence, he answered her blunty. ‘But I need you to be in my animated pictures, Lisette.’

She answered calmly, ignoring Michel’s sharp intake of breath. ‘There are plenty of experienced actresses and would-be actresses who would jump at the chance to get into this new medium. In any case, I have no wish to give up my life here. You discovered the last time we met that I’m now living in the place where I most want to be. There is nothing you could offer me that would make me change my mind.’

‘I think there is.’

She was suddenly alarmed at what he might say next and answered quickly. ‘Don’t try to win me round with hope of fame and fortune. You know that holds no appeal for me.’

Fortunately the wine arrived at that moment. They toasted the Lumières and then to Lisette’s relief the conversation kept to a safe plane with Michel questioning Daniel about his various projects and the apparatus used. She was not surprised by Michel’s genuine interest, for moving pictures were greatly talked and written about at the present time. It also appeared that Daniel had decided that further persuasion towards her would be useless and without comment had finally accepted her refusal.

Their table was located some distance from the windows and it was not until they emerged into the crisp cold air outside again that they saw what had been happening in their absence. A long line of people had formed all the way from the entrance to the Grand Cafe along the length of the street as far as the eye could see.

‘They’re waiting for the next Lumirère performance!’ Lisette exclaimed delightedly.

‘It’s begun!’ Daniel seized her and swung her around in his jubilation, both of them laughing into each other’s faces. ‘There’ll be no stopping film-making now.’

Later she was to remember it was the first time she had heard the new way of describing the making of animated pictures. She also recalled how he had kissed her in joy as he set her on her feet again. Then Michel had taken her hand and placed it firmly in the crook of his arm as he reminded her that they had planned to spend the afternoon in the Louvre.

‘Where are you staying, Lisette?’ Daniel asked as they were drawing away. ‘We must meet again before I leave tomorrow.’

Michel had hailed a cab. ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible,’ he replied, answering for her. ‘We are fully booked for the rest of our stay.’

Lisette did not care for him deciding matters for her. In truth she would have liked another meeting more than she was prepared to admit even to herself, but in Michel’s presence there would be no chance to talk freely to Daniel. It was better for them to part now.

‘Goodbye, Daniel. As always I wish you good luck with your enterprise.’

Then, as she waved to him from the cab window, he gave her a broad wink as if they shared a secret. She smiled to herself. Maybe they did. She almost believed that somehow or other he would try to see her again before he departed. Yet that was unlikely to happen, for he did not know where she and Michel were staying and there were many hotels in Paris.

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 sticks 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.