Moonlight Over Paris(58)
All Saturday she worked alongside her friends and said nothing, not wishing to color her day with dread of the inevitable. It was also the case that she had a pretty good idea of how they would react.
Only when it was time to leave for dinner at Rosalie’s, and they were putting on their coats and dousing the lanterns in the studio, did she admit the truth of her plans for the evening. Both étienne and Mathilde were horrified; fortunately Daisy had already left, so she wasn’t present to cast a third condemning vote.
“Are you mad?” Mathilde asked. “The man is un cochon . . . étienne?”
“A swine.”
“Yes. And I do not say this as a critique, for you are a lovely girl, I hope you know it, but this d’Albret person is in search of a fortune. Remember what your Sam said at dinner that night—”
“He’s not ‘my’ Sam,” she protested. It had been one month since he had kissed her, so long that even her carefully tended memories of the moment had begun to fade.
“Pfft,” said Mathilde. “He said that these airplanes are very expensive, and d’Albret, he sees your aunt, he sees how she lives, and he thinks to use you to get some of it for himself.”
“I only said I’d have dinner with him,” Helena protested. “What harm can that do?”
“You know, Hélène, just because Sam is busy, that is no reason for you to look elsewhere,” étienne added.
“I’m not! I only thought it might be nice to go dancing. That’s all. And I don’t see what Sam has to do with any of this. Really I don’t.”
“Eh bien. I will be at the D?me later, just in case. If you are bored, ask him to bring you there.”
She’d taken the tram home, not feeling up to a walk through the cold, and had spent the absolute minimum of time and effort in preparing for the evening. Her Vionnet gown was too fine for the occasion, so she put on a simple frock of plum-colored wool, touched up her face with some rouge and powder, and declared herself ready.
Mr. d’Albret rang the doorbell at five minutes before the hour, and if he was surprised when she answered it herself—Vincent was in Antibes with her aunt, and the other servants were busy belowstairs—he didn’t show it. He was beautifully dressed, and indeed looked very handsome. Nor could she fault his manners as he helped her in and out of his enormous black Daimler, then escorted her into one of the private dining rooms at Lapérouse on the quai des Grands Augustins.
It was rather alarming to be separated from the other diners and effectively left alone with a man who was little more than a stranger, but the restaurant’s waiters were never far away, and the chambre particulier was very charming. It was small, less than half the size of her bedroom at home, and was extravagantly decorated with figured walnut paneling, very bad copies of Old Masters paintings, and mirrors in elaborate gilded frames.
The mirrors, she noticed, were covered in scratches, with scrawled initials here and there, which seemed rather odd given the luxury of their surroundings.
“I see you are wondering at the marks. They were left by courtesans. When their lovers gave them diamonds, they would test them on a mirror, for only a true diamond can cut the glass.”
“Ah,” she said, rather unnerved that he had brought her to an establishment known for assignations with courtesans. “Thank you for explaining, Monsieur d’Albret.”
“Oh, please—you must call me Jean-Fran?ois.”
“Very well. I’ve, ah, never been here before,” she said, hoping to steer the conversation in a more conventional direction.
“Where do you dine, if not in the finest establishments?”
“Well, I dine at home. With my aunt. And I do go to several restaurants in Montparnasse with—”
“Pah. That ghetto. With my apologies to your aunt’s excellent cook, I fear this means you have not yet experienced the wonders of French haute cuisine.” He snapped his fingers, and a waiter ran in from the corridor.
“I have decided that we shall both partake of the tasting menu. To begin, I have ordered a bottle of their finest champagne.”
“Oh, really, there’s no need—”
“But I insist.”
Dinner was endless, a parade of increasingly rich dishes that he devoured with great gusto, but which Helena barely touched. The tasting menu, disappointingly, included many of her least favorite foods, and she was simply unable to muster the appetite to eat more than a bite or two of each course. There were jellied langoustine, which looked disconcertingly insectlike, duckling in a viscous orange sauce, lamb’s kidneys, and even frog’s legs.
She had accepted only one glass of champagne at the beginning of dinner and had refused anything more; by the end of the meal, Jean-Fran?ois had finished off the bottle, as well as an additional bottle of claret. He stumbled on the way out of the restaurant and had some difficulty in entering the car, but this in no way dampened his enthusiasm for the evening.
“Let us go to Le Grand Duc in Pigalle. It has the best American jazz music in Paris. After that, we shall go dancing at the Bal Bullier.”
Although she would much rather have gone home, the prospect of hearing jazz music played live did appeal to her. She’d only ever heard it on gramophone records, and if she were lucky the music would be so loud that she wouldn’t have to make conversation with the man, her store of conversational topics having petered out well before the second course at dinner. Of course, if he’d even once asked about her interests, or work, or friends, they’d have had plenty to talk about.