Paris: The Novel (71 page)

Frank Hadley was enjoying Paris. Every morning, as soon as there was enough natural light, he would start work—sometimes drawing, painting or studying. By mid-morning he was usually working with one of several artists in their ateliers. Three days a week, after a light lunch, he spent a couple of hours with a student who gave him French lessons. In the evenings he went out to meet his growing circle of friends. No matter how difficult it was at first, he spoke nothing but French, and tried to read as much as possible in French too. As a result, his French was improving rapidly. His greatest friend remained Marc Blanchard.

There had been one awkward moment.

“Did you tell Fox about my problem with Corinne Petit?” Marc suddenly asked him one day.

“I did. When we were at Versailles. I apologize, Marc. I don’t know why I did it. I’m an idiot.”

“Just don’t do it again.”

“I certainly won’t.”

“As it happened, you did me a favor.” And he told Hadley what Fox had done.

“Why would he do that?”

“Simple enough, I should think. He’s helping three of his family’s clients in one transaction. I dare say he reckons that the more he shows my father he can trust him, the more of my father’s business may come their way.” He smiled. “As for our family’s little secret, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to some of the stuff he knows about his clients.”

Hadley nodded.

“By the way,” Marc continued, “you won’t ever mention this business to Marie, will you?”

“Of course not. Never. But you don’t think she might hear?”

Marc shook his head.

“Not a chance. In the same circumstances, would an American girl know?”

“Girls from respectable families are brought up with very strict morals. But they’re not shrinking violets. They usually have some idea of what’s going on.”

“If my parents have anything to do with it, not a word of this will ever be spoken in front of her. She will be totally innocent.” He grinned. “But don’t worry, Hadley, I can introduce you to plenty of girls who aren’t so respectable.”

Frank Hadley considered.

“So tell me,” he said quietly, “where does Mademoiselle Ney fit into all this respectability?”

Sometimes, Marc had to admit, his private life was getting too complicated. Women found him attractive, he told himself. That was the trouble. Apart from two models and the banker’s wife who’d sat for him, and Corinne Petit, of course, there had been numerous casual encounters.

Hortense Ney, however, was a very different matter.

At first, he had hardly known what to make of her. Though she was not yet married, it was clear that she had long ago reached the age of independence. She spoke little, yet was very much in control of herself. When he asked her to sit down across from the window and look across to the wall on his left, so that he might study her for a while and see how the light fell across her face, she sat very still, her expression unsmiling and quite immobile. She was slim, her face pale. She wore a long skirt, and an elegant jacket closed tightly up to her neck, the sleeves with a small, fashionable puff at the shoulders. The ensemble was topped off by a little hat with a feather. Everything was neat, controlled, buttoned up.

So that it was hardly surprising that Marc experienced a growing curiosity to discover what lay underneath this cool, closed perfection.

“Were you expecting to be painted sitting down?” he asked after a while.

She did not turn her face toward him, but her shoulders moved just enough to suggest a shrug.

“I suppose so.”

“I am going to ask you, if you please, to stand up and this time to look toward me. If I move about, do not turn to look at me, but stay in the same attitude.”

He did move about. She kept perfectly still.

“If I asked you to stand like that for an hour or two,” he asked, “do you think you could do it?”

“Yes.”

“I shall provide you with a chair to stand beside. I should like you to come next time wearing a dress, something that you might wear in the evening, open at the neck. Naturally, your hair will be coiffed as though you were going to a dinner party. Please also bring a fan.”

“As you wish, monsieur. That is all for now?”

“Yes. I have made some quick sketches of you. Now I have to study them.” He smiled. “Most carefully. It will take me many hours.”

“Oh.” Her face, just, registered surprise.

“You only have to return,” he said pleasantly, “but I have to begin to understand you, and I have much to learn.”

It was a line he had used a few times already. It usually worked.

She had come for her sittings once or twice a week. He had discovered gradually that, though she didn’t talk much, she was well-informed. She saw all the exhibitions, went to galleries, plays, and sometimes the opera, although music interested her little. She attended charity events and was even a trustee for one or two. It seemed that she knew a good deal about her father’s legal practice, and Marc soon realized, from small remarks Hortense let fall, that she had a sharp eye for making money.

But she had never given any hint of interest in sex. Hadley came by one day during a sitting and afterward remarked: “That’s a cold, prim woman.”

It might be so, but to Marc, there was something about her, something contained yet erotic, that made him all the more curious. By the third week, he started making small moves, delicate suggestions, to see if he got any response.

He didn’t. She observed him calmly with her brown eyes, but gave him nothing for his pains.

A month had passed before one afternoon he found it necessary to rearrange the line of her dress over her breasts. Stepping forward to do so, he paused a moment longer than he need have.

“Are you trying to make love to me, monsieur?” she quietly demanded.

Taken aback, he hesitated.

“Why do you ask?”

“I have had that impression for some time.”

“I am sure it would be interesting,” he said.

“Perhaps. There is only one way to find out.”

“Assuredly.”

It was a week later, coming to see his friend, that Hadley had found her at the studio wearing only a sheet she had hastily draped over herself. He had beat a hasty retreat, but later Marc had confessed to him: “It’s quite amazing. I just can’t get enough of her.” He’d nodded thoughtfully. “Or she of me.”

“And she seemed so cold. Is this her first adventure?”

“No. Her first was a long time ago. In Monte Carlo. She’s very careful. Has adventures when she’s away.” He grinned. “I am the first in Paris.”

“Congratulations.”

As Fox looked at the party going to Malmaison, he knew he was lucky. But he was nervous as well.

He was lucky because he’d gotten exactly whom he’d wanted. Marie and her brother, of course, and Marc’s friend Hadley. He was glad to have the American there, both because he was a nice fellow, and also because he provided cover. But luckiest of all, he’d gotten both Marie’s parents as well. And in its way, this was even more to his purpose than having Marie herself.

Part of the reason both Jules and his wife came, he supposed, was his choice of venue. When he’d told Jules, the older man had been most intrigued. “No one’s been there for years. I didn’t know one could even get in.”

“I just wrote and asked,” said Fox blandly. He did not say that his letter had also mentioned the fact that he’d like to show the place to the family of the owner of the Joséphine department store.

De Cygne had not been able to come, so there were six of them altogether in the big landau Fox had hired.

They were joined by one, tiny additional passenger. For a week ago, Jules Blanchard had given his wife a charming present: a brown-and-white King Charles spaniel, to which she was already devoted, and who came with them on the trip.

It was a jolly party. If Jules Blanchard was barely on speaking terms with Marc, one would never have known it. The puppy, a tiny, fluffy ball of life, kept them all amused as they rolled pleasantly along.

But James Fox was nervous, and with good reason. The more he had thought about his strategy, the more correct it had seemed. But even without
de Cygne—who could reappear any day—his chances were not good. Any attempt to court Marie, to declare his interest openly, and he could be quite certain that her family would make it impossible for him to see her again. They might like him, but he was a Protestant. His only hope, therefore, was to become so much a part of their family that they would make an exception for him. He must become like a brother to her.

Could he manage to conceal that he was in love with her? His English manners helped. With perfect self-control, he could become her best friend without giving himself away. But he still needed to see her regularly.

How to accomplish this? He could see her father on business more often. That was a start. But it didn’t get him into Marie’s company. And he certainly couldn’t invent an expedition like this every week.

Today gave him the chance to work on both her parents. He must watch for opportunities somehow. He had to find a way into their house on a regular basis.

So he wasted no time in pleasing Madame Blanchard.

“As an Englishman, madame, your choice of puppy gives me particular pleasure,” he pointed out. “This breed originated in England a couple of centuries ago. Although,” he smiled, “there are certain perfidious persons who say that they were brought to England by the French princess who married our King Charles.”

“They’re becoming very popular,” said Marie.

“Yes. But let me tell you something. People have been breeding these little spaniels with pugs, thinking this will make them even neater looking. And the results are not entirely successful. Whereas I can see that the dog you have comes from the pure old breed, which I think is better.”

“He’s quite right, you know,” said Jules. “That’s exactly what the breeder told me.”

As for his wife, she gave Fox a smile that told him that he’d scored a point.

“There’s a dog exactly like that in an early painting by Manet,” Hadley remarked.

“He knows everything,” Marie cried delightedly.

“He certainly does,” said Marc with a grin. “Soon, Hadley, you’ll know more about France than we do.”

“You’re setting me up for a fall, I see,” Hadley answered amiably. “And by the way,” he added, “I know almost nothing about this place we’re going to.”