Alone In Paris Read online

  But he had stayed with the Duke because he knew that, if he was not there, the hangers-on who toadied to him, who had their hands permanently in his pockets and who were doing their best to spoil him as an individual, would have a field day.

  Mr. Beaumont was a man of very high principles and he had been brought up in a family where duty came first.

  He had long ago decided that his duty lay in looking after the Duke of Wolstanton and if possible saving him from himself.

  He was not the slightest bit priggish or sanctimonious about the Duke’s way of life.

  A young man, especially with the Duke’s advantages, was expected to sow his wild oats and take advantage of whatever favours the fair sex were prepared to grant him.

  But the Duke was no longer as young as he had been when Mr. Beaumont had first moved into his household in Park Lane. He was nearly thirty-five and approaching the prime of his life.

  Mr. Beaumont knew better than anyone else that it was essential for the Duke to marry and to marry the right type of woman.

  He had therefore secretly been delighted when Lady Rose’s ungovernable temper had sent the Duke posting at a moment’s notice to Paris to get away from her.

  Mr. Beaumont disliked Lady Rose, as he had disliked most of the women who had tried desperately by every means in their power to marry the Duke over the last few years.

  Yet he sometimes asked himself, almost as cynically as his Master, what was the alternative.

  The women whom the Duke met in the Marlborough House Set hosted by the Prince of Wales or whom he himself invited to Wolstanton House were all sophisticated, glittering and scintillating Social Queens.

  They tried to trap a man they desired with all the skill and expertise of an accomplished poacher.

  Each time a new woman appeared on the Duke’s horizon, Mr. Beaumont found himself groaning and, when he had made her acquaintance, sending up a prayer in his heart, which was nearly always the same,

  ‘Not this one, dear God, not this one!’

  He walked to his office, which was an extremely comfortable room situated on the ground floor.

  From here, like a spider spinning its web, he made the wheels of the house run so smoothly that the Duke never had the slightest idea how much was involved in providing for his comfort.

  Mr. Beaumont sat down at his desk and as he did so he wondered how long it would be before the Duke sent for him to write a cheque for the picture that Dubucheron had carried in his hand.

  The Duke was at that moment inspecting the picture.

  “How did you know I was here?” the Duke had asked first, as Philippe Dubucheron approached him with an ingratiating smile that signified he was expecting to make a good sale.

  “It was in the luncheontime edition of Le Jour,” Philippe Dubucheron replied.

  The Duke made a sound of annoyance.

  “I have always suspected that one of the servants here gives out information about me to the newspapers. Now I am sure of it! No one knew that I was coming to Paris until this morning when the household learnt the time of my arrival.”

  “It is delightful to see Your Grace,” Philippe Dubucheron said hastily, “and I have something that I think will interest you.”

  “I might have guessed it!” the Duke exclaimed. “What is it?”

  “The last picture painted by Julius Thoreau before he died.”

  That was untrue, as the picture had been painted nearly two years previously, before Thoreau began drinking so heavily, but Dubucheron achieved the effect he desired.

  “Dead? I had no idea that Thoreau was dead,” the Duke exclaimed.

  “He died a week ago from the usual disease that carries off the best artists we have.”

  “Absinthism?” the Duke queried.

  “Exactly!”

  As Dubucheron spoke, he undid the wrapping that covered the picture that he had taken from Julius Thoreau’s studio.

  He held it up and as he did so he thought that it was actually one of the best paintings he had ever done.

  Strangely enough he had not been able to find a buyer for it, although he had tried several Americans and one Italian.

  He set it down on a sofa where it faced the light and the Duke stood back to examine it, noting the strange effect of light in the rather sordid street.

  “I don’t know what it is,” he said almost to himself, “but Thoreau’s pictures have a strange effect on me. They make me feel that they are telling me something, if only I could understand what it is.”

  Dubucheron did not answer.

  He was a clever enough businessman not to impose his own ideas on his clients, unless of course it concerned the price.

  “How much are you asking for it?”

  It was the conventional question and the Duke asked it absent-mindedly, as if he was thinking of something else.

  Dubucheron named a figure that was double what he expected to obtain and the Duke did not accept nor refuse. He only went on looking at the picture.

  Then, as if he forced his attention away from it, he enquired,

  “What are the latest amusements in Paris? Is there a new star in the theatrical firmament?”

  “I have someone I think you would like to meet,” Dubucheron answered, “if only as an experience.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I am speaking of Yvette Joyant. She is a dancer of some merit, but her personality is more exceptional than her talent.”

  “I don’t seem to know the name.”

  “She has not been performing lately. She has been the mistress of the Duc d’Almare, but he has just left her and she is now what those of the theatrical profession call ‘resting’.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “What you are suggesting, Dubucheron, is that I might put in a bid, which would doubtless be accepted.”

  “She would certainly amuse you while you are here,” Dubucheron answered, “although perhaps I should warn you that she is spoken of as the most seductively evil woman who has ever graced the ranks of her profession.”

  “What you are really offering me is a challenge,” the Duke said. “If I find her as entertaining as you suggest, I shall have to admit that I am an old dog who is prepared to learn new tricks. If, however, I am bored, then I am sure you will make certain that you have nothing to lose.”

  Philippe Dubucheron bowed obsequiously.

  “Your Grace always enjoys pulling my leg,” he said, “but if you find Mademoiselle Yvette not to your liking, then I have another suggestion to make.”

  “What is that?”

  “You might like to meet Thoreau’s daughter.”

  “His daughter!” the Duke exclaimed. “Is she an artist like her father?”

  “No,” Philippe Dubucheron replied. “She is very young, very innocent and has just arrived in Paris to find herself an orphan and stranded without any money.”

  “Are you asking me to be a philanthropist?” the Duke enquired. “I imagine that what I pay you for this picture will help to keep her in comfort for a week or so.”

  “But of course,” Philippe Dubucheron replied. “I was just thinking that the two women are in such sharp contrast that I might be offering you the choice of descending into Hell or ascending into Heaven!”

  He thought to himself that he had appraised the situation rather cleverly.

  He did not realise that the Duke was remembering that only a few minutes earlier Mr. Beaumont had told him that he stood at a crossroads.

  “I thought you offered me a challenge, Dubucheron,” he remarked, “but I see instead it is a conundrum.”

  “The choice is yours,” Philippe Dubucheron said quickly. “As you say, the sale of her father’s picture will obviously help the situation as far as Miss Thoreau is concerned, but she is too innocent and too inexperienced to be left.”

  “I quite understand that you are trying to intrigue me,” the Duke said, “but you must have forgotten that I had an experience once before of your idea
of innocence. Do you not remember Mimi Fenon?”

  Philippe Dubucheron laughed.

  “Of course, Your Grace. I confess that at the time I was deceived by a very experienced and astute little actress, but you must admit that I had some justification. She certainly looked as innocent as she pretended to be.”

  “She cost me a sum of money that even made Beaumont gasp!” the Duke said. “But on looking back I think the lesson it taught me was worth it.”

  “And what was that?” Dubucheron asked, as if he knew that it was expected of him.

  “Never to trust a woman who tells you that she has not a penny in her purse and nowhere to sleep the night.”

  Philippe Dubucheron threw out his arms in an expressive gesture.

  “Very well, Your Grace, you win!” he said. “Shall I tell Yvette Joyant that you will take her out to dinner? You may well leave the rest of the evening to her.”

  “I suppose I must trust to your judgement,” the Duke said. “You have only failed me once, Dubucheron, and I think I must be fair in saying that Mimi Fenon was not exactly a failure. It was only when I unwrapped the parcel that I found its contents were not what I expected.”

  Dubucheron threw back his head in an almost exaggerated expression of mirth.

  “Well phrased, Your Grace!” he exclaimed. “It’s not surprising that you are described as the greatest wit in England to set foot in Paris.”

  It was blatant flattery and the Duke accepted it as his right.

  Philippe Dubucheron took a long look at the picture on the sofa, which recalled the Duke’s attention to what was obviously expected.

  “Stop in at Mr. Beaumont’s office as you leave,” he said, “and ask him for a cheque.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace. And I was just wondering,” Philippe Dubucheron said, “if Thoreau has left any other pictures in his studio, whether you would like to see them.”

  “Why not?” the Duke enquired. “I like Thoreau’s work and it is indeed a pity he is dead. He could not have been very old.”

  “About forty-five, Your Grace.”

  “There would have been a lot of work still left in him had he not succumbed to that damned poison. I was hearing the other day from one of your Generals in London of the damage it has done in the Army.”

  “It’s a curse for the whole of France,” Philippe Dubucheron agreed, “and, as Your Grace has said, it’s a pity Thoreau had to die so young.”

  As he spoke, he thought that if Thoreau had lived, the pictures he had recently been producing would not have fetched a sou from any connoisseur.

  He was at the same time turning over in his mind whether there was anything left of Thoreau’s earlier works that had escaped his notice.

  He decided that he would hurry back to the studio and look over the canvasses that were on the floor and perhaps there would be some in the bedroom or hidden away in the dirty little hole that Thoreau called a kitchen.

  “I will call tomorrow, Your Grace,” he said. “In the meantime may I wish you a very pleasant evening with the delectable Yvette? I will leave her address with Mr. Beaumont.”

  Philippe Dubucheron’s hand was actually on the door handle when the Duke, who was still gazing at the picture on the sofa, said,

  “Wait!”

  The Frenchman stopped and turned his head tentatively.

  “I have an idea,” the Duke said. “Why should I meet Mademoiselle Yvette in this informal manner without an introduction?”

  “Introduction, Your Grace?” Dubucheron asked in a puzzled voice.

  “It is just a suggestion,” the Duke said, “but why do you not dine with me, Dubucheron, and Thoreau’s daughter could make up the foursome.”

  The Duke’s lips twisted in a smile as he added,

  “I can then, while both ladies are with me, make my choice of direction, as you so concisely put it, of descending into Hell or ascending into Heaven.”

  For a moment Philippe Dubucheron was too astonished to reply.

  In all the years he had known the Duke, he had never been invited to dine with him. In fact theirs had always been a purely businesslike relationship.

  Now he felt that he could not have understood the Duke aright, but before he could speak, the Duke went on,

  “We will dine here. It will give me a chance to see the ladies in more comfortable circumstances. I suggest you bring them both to meet me at eight o’clock.”

  “It will be an honour and a privilege, Your Grace,” Philippe Dubucheron said, “and I promise you that, if nothing else, your first evening in Paris will evoke a piquancy that is original – ”

  He paused for a moment and then added,

  “Like the Chinese sweet-and-sour sauce!”

  He did not wait for the Duke’s reply but went from the room with a smile on his face, which infuriated Mr. Beaumont when he saw it.

  *

  The sun had begun to sink and the shadows in the untidy studio had begun to deepen while Una waited for Monsieur Dubucheron to return.

  When he left, she had at first started to try to tidy some of the jumble that made it almost impossible to move about the large room, but after a while she gave it up.

  Everything was so dusty and dirty and, although she felt quite tired from the exertion, she did not seem to have made any difference to the general confusion.

  She found what she supposed was the kitchen and washed her hands in the sink, but she was appalled by the dirt and the congealed grease where food had been cooked.

  The window was filthy and let in so little light that it was almost impossible to see what she was doing.

  When she went back into the studio, she looked again at the picture her father had been painting before he died and tried to understand it.

  Although she had loved his pictures in the past, this was so incomprehensible that she had the uncomfortable feeling that his mind might have been deranged while he painted it.

  She thought that she ought to feel absolutely grief-stricken because her father was dead.

  But somehow, sitting in his ghastly studio, she felt that she had lost someone she did not know, someone who was certainly not the handsome dashing father she had loved when her mother was alive.

  There was an enormous number of empty wine bottles on the floor, on the table and arranged like skittles along the windowsill, which posed a question that she did not wish to answer.

  She remembered in the past her mother saying with a sigh,

  “I wish your father would not drink so much when he goes to Paris. He always comes home looking so ill. Drink has never agreed with him.”

  “He does not drink at home, Mama,” she recalled saying.

  “For the simple reason that we cannot afford it, dearest,” her mother had answered, “but when Papa is with his friends he likes to do as they do.”

  Una could only wonder now what sort of friends her father had known since he had come to live in Montmartre, friends who had encouraged him to drink even though it made him ill.

  Friends who were perhaps responsible for the whirling and inexplicable colours that twisted and turned over the canvass with no rhyme or reason to them.

  It was impossible not to think of her own situation at the moment.

  What was she to do?

  If Monsieur Dubucheron sold the picture, she would at least have a little money, which would give her time to look round and find somewhere to live and find a job of some sort.

  The odd thing was that, despite all the years she had spent being educated, she had not a saleable talent.

  ‘I can play the piano a little,’ Una told herself, ‘and I can paint, but only in a very amateurish way. I can sew and that is about all! I have to think of something – I have to!’

  She spoke aloud, almost despairingly, and thought that her voice sounded like that of a ghost echoing round the big studio.

  Finally she decided that perhaps if she applied at some schools they might require a mistress who could teach English or at least l
ook after small children.

  Then as she thought of it, and it seemed a sensible idea, she remembered how very young she looked and how young in fact she was in years.

  All the mistresses in the Convent had been nuns who came in to teach special subjects and were middle-aged women, chosen, Una felt sure, because they had the authority to keep the pupils in order and make them learn.

  She rose from the chair where she had been sitting to see if she could find a mirror in which she could look at her reflection.

  It had not, of course, altered since she had seen her reflection when arranging her hair in the train.

  But then she had been looking at herself to see if she looked attractive enough to please her father, not because she required a presence and an authority that would make parents and schoolteachers trust her with young children.

  The only mirror in the place was upstairs in her father’s bedroom.

  It stood on the chest of drawers and was cracked across the centre.

  She looked at herself for a long time and then took off her hat, wondering if it was the almost childish creation on the back of her head which made her look so very young and, as it happened, so very frightened.

  The half-naked women depicted on the walls seemed to stare at her with contempt and Una hurried back down the rickety stairs to the studio.

  Now her imagination began to frighten her even more.

  Suppose Monsieur Dubucheron had forgotten about her? Suppose he never came back? How long should she stay here waiting for him and, if she decided to leave, where would she go?

  She began to feel hungry, but he had said that she was not to leave the studio or let anyone into it.

  ‘What am I to do?’

  The question seemed almost to be shouted at her from the pictures on the walls.

  Because she thought that they made her even more anxious, she walked to the window.

  She looked up at the sky and prayed.

  Ever since her mother had died she had found herself, when she said her prayers, sometimes saying them to God and sometimes to her mother.

  She often thought childishly that God was too busy to hear her, but her mother would always be listening.