Moonlight Over Paris(82)

“You looking for Howard?”

“Yes. I had hoped—”

“He’s gone. Moved out this morning.”

Gone. Moved out.

“But he wasn’t supposed to leave until next week,” she said, her hand clutching at the door frame.

“Left this morning. Sorry about that.”

She walked home in a daze, not even noticing when the sky grew dark and it began to rain. She was soaked through by the time she stumbled up the front steps of her aunt’s house, and though she tried to be quiet as she crept along the front hall and toward the stairs it was no use, for her aunt burst out of the petit salon when Helena was only on the second step.

“Helena, my dear, where have you been? And why were you walking in the rain?”

She allowed Agnes to pull her into the petit salon, where she was wrapped in warm towels and given a cup of tea and allowed to collect herself. She had just swallowed the last of the tea when she noticed the newspaper clipping on the table beside her.

“It was in the paper today,” Agnes said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

The Tribune’s Samuel Taylor Howard is departing these shores for the United States. Mr. Howard is leaving his chosen profession behind, much to the disappointment of his fellows here in Paris, with the intention of joining his father, Andrew Clement Howard III, in the management of their family’s business concerns in America and abroad. He is sailing from Le Havre on the SS Paris and upon arrival in New York City is expected to immediately take up his position with the Howard Steel Company.


She let go of the clipping and watched it flutter to the floor. “I knew. He told me. But he wasn’t meant to leave until next week. I thought . . . I thought I’d have a chance to say good-bye.”

Tears rose in her eyes again, and with them came quiet, anguished sobs that left her drained and spent and nearly without hope. Agnes hugged her close and let her weep, and it was a long while before she was able to speak again.

“I was so unkind to him. I said . . . oh, I said such awful things, and now he’s gone, and I think it might be my fault . . .”

“How so?” her aunt asked.

“He was upset with me, because he thought I was giving up on my dream of becoming an artist, and of course he was right. But I lashed out at him, and I said some very cruel things. I told him . . . oh, Auntie A. I told him he should go back to America. That he belonged there.”

“What on earth possessed you to be so unkind?”

“I don’t know. I was hurt, and so angry, and the words just burst out of me. And the worst part is that I was wrong. He had been trying to escape, just as I’ve been trying. All along, he was trying to break free. And he was so close. If only I’d been a better friend, he’d have seen it. He’d have seen it was possible.”

“Then be his friend now. Tell him what you just told me.”

“I suppose I could write to him. Sara might know his address in New York.”

“No,” Agnes said decisively. “No, a letter won’t do. You need to go to him.”

“What? Go to America? I can’t. It’s too . . . it’s too far, for a start. And we’ve the wedding this Thursday.”

“Then you can leave the next morning. You’ll still arrive in America only a few days after he does.”

“What if he refuses to see me? He left without telling me, or saying good-bye. Surely that means—”

“How can you know what any of this means if you don’t go to him and find out? Now get started on packing your things, and I’ll take care of everything else.”





Chapter 29


Belgravia, London

30 April 1925

One thing hadn’t changed in the year since Helena had left London: the way she was treated by genteel society. Throughout the course of her niece’s wedding day, she had been subjected to the same whispers, stares, cold shoulders, and knowing sideways glances that had blighted her life for so long.

She had expected it, steeled herself against it, and then, quite to her astonishment, had discovered that none of it hurt, not anymore. Once, such petty cruelties had defined her life. No more. Now, she realized, she truly didn’t care.

It helped that she was dressed to the nines, or, as Mathilde would say, to the trente et un. Agnes had surprised her that morning with a new Vionnet frock and matching coat, which she’d had made from Helena’s measurements after their visit in December. The outfit, made of silk chiffon and wool crepe the exact color of purple pansies, was exactly right for the occasion. With it she wore a matching cloche hat in finely pleated organdy, and a long rope of her aunt’s biggest pearls, and she felt—she knew—she was the best-dressed woman there, with the possible exception of Agnes herself.

Of course Helena had expected it would be difficult to be thrown back into the same social circles that had once been so uncongenial to her, and of course she had known it would be hard to see Edward and his family for the first time in years. What she hadn’t anticipated was how anxious she would feel over the fate of her niece, or how disenchanted she would be with the ceremony and attendant traditions, all of which felt like they belonged to an earlier age.

The expensive bridal gown from Paris had looked all wrong on Rose, its heavy satin far too overwhelming for her slight frame, while the family veil of Honiton lace, anchored by a diamond bandeau worn low over her forehead, had given her the appearance of a little girl playing dress-up.