The Charmers: A Novel(48)

I wore those pearls for the year we lived together, but the even greater gift he gave me was his love. And beyond that, even more of a miracle to a young woman like myself who had never known a true “home,” who had never owned property, never thought to do more than pay rent for a fashionable house in Paris. He built me the Villa Romantica.





38

Of course the villa was not there yet, but we drove together to the place it would be, in that lovely Delage, chauffeur in gray uniform at the wheel, champagne chilling in the silver bucket, flowers fresh each morning in the silver vases, always lily of the valley. I remember the scent so clearly across all these years. And thank God, I also remember what young love felt like.

The Villa Romantica took a mere twelve months to build, mainly because of my insisting that I intended to occupy it in the New Year when I would hold a party in celebration—a costume party, with every guest masked, the women in feathers, the men in black silk. I had no idea what kind of omen this might represent. And why should I?

I almost fell for the inevitable Marie Antoinette costume but caught myself just in time, realizing there would be at least a dozen others in the same powdered wigs and billowing skirts. I went for the Cinderella look instead; the most charming silken rags in cream and coffee and a touch of raspberry to set off my red hair that I wore not in its usual braid but wrapped round and round my head in a great fiery swirl, studded with the sort of large diamond pins the true Cinderella would never have seen, until she captured her prince, that is. And maybe not even then. After all, we don’t really know the ending of that story, do we? Not the way you are about to know the ending of this one.

Let me tell first how wonderful my Villa Romantica looked, pale pink against a midnight blue sky, lanterns hanging from the branches of the newly planted, though mature, trees that looked as though they had been there forever.

We were to welcome in the year 1938. Peace was all around us, at least those of us who ignored the saber-rattling emanating from Germany and its raucous, hotheaded maniacal leader. All we heard was the soft dance music and the music of the sea and the nightingales, and even the cuckoos that could wreck any girl’s romance remained outside the window, cuckooing like the clocks the Swiss made.

Was there any night more blissful? Just warm enough for bare shoulders; just cool enough later for a man to lend his jacket to slip over those shoulders; just elegant enough to dress in your best, the latest Paris fashion, the biggest jewels taken from bank vaults and displayed like play stones around elegant necks and on elegant arms. Myself, I wore the pearls. I also wore the new ring, the sapphire from Ceylon where all the most beautiful sapphires were mined, and sold via Amsterdam, where the most expensive and largest stones are cut by craftsmen who are artists too, so every facet catches the light and gleams, a bit of deep blue heaven.

And who was the man that gave me this precious gift?

It was not Rex, who I had unselfishly sent back to his debutante. It was Walt Matthews, known as “Iron Man” Matthews because of his daring adventures in parts of the world most of us never venture to go. He had survived not only the sinking of the then-brand-new and biggest liner ever built, the Titanic, but had rescued many passengers from the ship, refusing to take a place in the last small orange life raft, knowing he had no chance. Yet, survive he did in a sea so cold it froze his feet until he feared he could no longer kick or swim, then suddenly he hit the warm Gulf current. He drifted for hours until he was picked up by a passing cruiser. Such is life, or death, he said, in an emotional speech he made about his experience. He also said he never feared death again after that.

I told him later that he only survived so he could find me, and fall in love with me. I was his fate. He said he fell for my scent. Evening in Paris it was called, or in French, of course, Soir de Paris. It was by Bourjois and I never knew if I was more enamored of the pretty cobalt-blue bottle with the silver stopper, or the violet-lilac scent itself.

We met, not in Paris, but in London, where I had gone to visit an art exhibition and to see old friends. The exhibition was held in a gallery on Bond Street, which suited me as it meant I could at the same time take in the new fashions displayed in the shop windows, and in particular a small jewelry store called, I believe, A La Vieille Russie, which naturally showed beautiful items from the old Russian Court that had to be sold by émigré desperate for money in the new country in which they were now condemned to live.

In my faulty memory, I’m trying to recall whether I went first to the art exhibition and fell in love with the man, or whether I went the jewelry store first and fell for the sapphire. Either way, I ended up with the man and the ring, and later, a painting. And of course, the painting turned out to be the most treasured possession of my life, even more so than the Villa Romantica.

The exhibition was not an important one, simply a hundred or so artworks propped up against a stone wall, not even on tables—they were considered so unimportant—brought in by would-be sellers verging on starvation and for whom a few English pounds might make the difference between a future and no future. Of course I was happy to help. I had been where they were, not so long ago.

There were also a number of more valuable paintings on display that were not for sale. One caught my eye. There was something familiar about the location captured in that painting. I stepped back to take a second look. It was by an English artist, J. M. W. Turner. A river scene, turbulent water with white crested waves, the bank grayish-green in the rainy light that so often covers the English countryside, only emphasizing its loveliness. A small inn hovered over the river, seeming almost ready to tumble into it, with a second-floor window projecting over it, diamond paned, with deep red curtains half-hidden behind the glass. Somehow, I felt I knew that inn; knew that room with its bowed window, and the red curtains I would draw tightly to shut out the night, shutting out the world so I might be alone with the man I truly loved.