Alone In Paris Read online

  She did not for a moment suspect that the Duke might not be interested in her.

  She only thought it a bore that they must be companied by a tiresome young girl, while Dubucheron should stay in his proper place and not intrude where he was not wanted.

  Una’s eyes, however, lit up with excitement.

  She had always longed to go to the Moulin Rouge, even though she knew that the mere idea of it would have shocked her mother.

  However, she had thought that if she came to live with her father in Montmartre, he might take her to the place that typified the Paris that until now had been nothing in her life except a name.

  She did not realise that while she was looking at the Duke, Philippe Dubucheron was gazing at her.

  He did not quite understand what game the Duke was playing, but he was well aware that the Moulin Rouge was not the right place for Una.

  He was in fact a little nervous of her reaction.

  He knew, as the Duke did, that the Moulin Rouge had become of interest to upper class gentlemen simply because it was the biggest market of prostitution in Europe.

  The girls there were almost as expensive as those in the Champs-Élysées, but the cabaret was good and the artists like Toulouse Lautrec who drew the posters for it were making it more fashionable year by year.

  Toulouse Lautrec’s poster had not exaggerated when it promised that the Moulin was Le Rendez-vous de High-Life.

  But, if the Duke wished to go to the Moulin Rouge, Philippe Dubucheron had no intention of trying to prevent him.

  The evening had been a surprise from the very beginning and he told himself that he was not prepared to argue with the Duke whatever he might suggest.

  Although he thought that it was slightly out of character for a man whom he sensed was extremely fastidious, it was after all to be expected that every Englishman, when he arrived in Paris, should gravitate towards the Moulin Rouge as a mouse towards cheese.

  The Duke’s carriage was waiting and it was far larger and more comfortable than Philippe Dubucheron’s.

  He had expected that the Duke would suggest that they should go in two carriages and so his own was waiting in the courtyard.

  Without his asking the question, the Duke gave him the answer,

  “We will travel together. There is room on my back seat for three if they are not too fat.”

  As he spoke, he glanced at Yvette’s sinuous figure and at Una’s childish one. Then he seated himself between the two ladies, while Philippe Dubucheron sat opposite them.

  During the drive from the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré to Montmartre, Yvette took the opportunity of whispering in the Duke’s ear words that it was fortunate Una could not overhear.

  As a matter of fact it was unlikely that she would have understood much of what was said.

  She was actually looking out of the windows, entranced once again by the brilliantly lit boulevards, by the processions of people parading up and down the broad pavements, by the crowded cafés and by everything that spoke to her of the glamour of Paris.

  It was, she thought, the most exciting evening that she had ever spent and for the moment she was prepared to forget tomorrow and all the difficulties that lay ahead and enjoy each moment as it passed.

  While Yvette was as close to the Duke as possible, seeming to entwine herself around him, Una sat in a corner of the carriage so that her body did not touch his.

  She was vividly conscious that she was beside him and that in a way, which she could not understand, he made her feel a little strange.

  She kept telling herself it was because he was English and, with the exception of her father, different from any other man she had seen before.

  He did in fact remind her of what her father had been like when she was small, when she had loved the sound of his voice and the way he picked her up in his arms.

  She could not have been very old when she first realised that her father looked different, very different from the Frenchmen she saw when she walked in the village or even when very occasionally she went with her mother into the City of Paris.

  Julius Thoreau, besides being broad-shouldered and good-looking, had always had a presence about him.

  “I fell in love with your father,” her mother had said once, “because he was so handsome and now I love him because he is the kindest as well as the most attractive man in the whole world.”

  Looking back it seemed to Una that even before her mother’s death her father had begun to change.

  It was not only the strange clothes he affected because he was an artist, he seemed to lose some of his English characteristics.

  And yet, she told herself now, it was wrong of her to criticise him.

  The Duke was everything she had always thought an English gentleman was like in addition to being a Duke and she thought too that there was something straightforward and honest about him.

  This was different from what she felt about Monsieur Dubucheron, even though he had been so kind.

  She wondered if the Duke liked Mademoiselle Joyant touching him with her black-gloved hands and if he felt embarrassed by the very proprietary way in which she was behaving.

  She felt that her mother would have thought it rather ill bred, but again she told herself that she had no right to find fault.

  It was so kind, so very kind of the Duke to have asked her to dinner.

  She wanted to talk to him about paintings, especially her father’s, but it would have been difficult to talk of anything serious when Mademoiselle Joyant was listening.

  ‘I wonder if I shall ever see him again after this evening is over,’ Una thought wistfully.

  Then they arrived at the Moulin Rouge.

  It was very much bigger than she had expected, as large as the Railway Station at which she had arrived in Paris and the noise as they entered was almost deafening.

  Philippe Dubucheron arranged that they were escorted through the crowds and given what was considered one of the best tables at the side of the dance floor.

  Una realised that the band was playing one of Offenbach’s romantic tunes.

  It sounded very different from the way she had heard it before, yet it managed to be heard amongst the chatter of voices and the raucous laughter that seemed to rise in a crescendo over everything else.

  They had only just sat down when there was a roll of the drums and La Goulue, one of the new stars at the Moulin, appeared on the dance floor.

  “She is only twenty years old,” Una heard Philippe Dubucheron tell the Duke.

  Then she found herself gasping at the manner in which the girl danced.

  Plump white skirts six yards wide, of swirling lace springing out of a tumbled froth of black expensive undergarments trimmed with delicately coloured ribbons, moved as she swung up her leg, pointing it straight at the chandelier.

  It was a well-shaped leg, held stiff and straight, gleaming silkily, and caught above the knee by a garter of diamonds.

  Voluptuous, gay, tumultuous, provocative, it was the sort of dance that Una had never imagined could even exist.

  She did not realise that it was in fact extremely improper. It only seemed to leave her breathless and, while the crowds shouted, ‘higher, La Goulue, higher!’ she was too bemused even to clap her hands.

  La Goulue kicked her leg, displayed her drawers with a jerk of the hips and revealed a heart embroidered on her behind. It brought a roar from those watching that seemed to shake the very roof.

  Next came the Can-Can, which had become, as Philippe Dubucheron knew, a kind of ritual dance, made as erotic as possible and far more suggestive than it had been originally.

  But it had a gaiety that was indescribable but with an undoubted skill and the performance ended in the splits.

  Sitting very straight on the hard chair, Una stared at what was taking place in front of her, her hands clasped together in her lap, a glass of champagne untouched in front of her.

  She did not realise that the Duke was watching her even while Yv
ette did not whisper in his ear nor that Philippe Dubucheron was watching her too.

  She could only feel that this was the most fantastic and strange dancing that she had ever seen and a very extraordinary place.

  At the same time she could understand that artists like her father would find a hundred different faces and poseshthere which would make a picture.

  When the cabaret came to an end and the crowd moved onto the dance floor, she said to Monsieur Dubucheron,

  “Will you point out to me any painters who are here tonight?”

  He looked round.

  “Toulouse Lautrec will be somewhere. He is always here two or three times a week and, if I can see him, I will show you Degas, who was a friend of your father’s and the caricaturist Metivet.”

  “Thank you,” Una said.

  “Tell me what you think of the Moulin Rouge, if this is your first visit here,” the Duke asked her.

  There was a query in his words that Philippe Dubucheron did not miss.

  Una answered him quite honestly.

  “It is difficult to put into words, Your Grace, what it makes me feel,” she said, “but I can understand – how artists could find it interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “The people – the performers, they have such individual faces,” she answered. “They are not like the people one sees elsewhere.”

  She thought the Duke looked sceptical and she added quickly,

  “At least not the sort of people I have met – but then that is not surprising.”

  “You have come from Italy,” he said, “but where in Italy?”

  She was unable to answer him before Yvette demanded his attention and again he was listening to something that she was whispering to him.

  While he was doing so, a gentleman resplendent in evening clothes, a top hat at an angle on his head, came up to their table.

  “Hello, Blaze,” he said to the Duke. “I did not expect to see you here. I thought you were in London.”

  “And so I was until yesterday.”

  His friend, however, was not listening to his reply. He had taken Yvette Joyant’s hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  “I am in luck in finding you here,” he said, “because I intended to call on you tomorrow.”

  “I hope you will do so,” Yvette replied.

  “Come and dance with me,” the newcomer said. “I have something important to tell you.”

  Yvette looked at the Duke from under her heavy eyelashes.

  “Do you mind, mon cher?” she asked. “Or would you rather dance with me yourself?”

  “I will watch you,” the Duke replied.

  She hesitated, as if she debated with herself whether she should demand that he dance with her.

  Then, obviously determined to make him realise what he was missing, she held out her arms to the man who was standing by the table.

  “Let’s show them, Henri, how two bodies can move as one,” she suggested.

  She moved into his arms and then had a provocative look at the Duke from over her shoulder as they moved away amongst the dancers.

  The Duke looked across the table at Philippe Dubucheron.

  “I think, Dubucheron,” he said, “that Miss Thoreau should have an early night. Shall I take her home?”

  There was a touch of laughter in Philippe Dubucheron’s eyes as he replied,

  “It would be very gracious of Your Grace, but unfortunately at the moment she has no home.”

  “What do you mean?” the Duke enquired.

  “She arrived today, as I have already told you,” Dubucheron answered, “and I was intending, when the evening ended, to find her a respectable lodging. Her trunk, as it happens, is at your house. I thought I would collect it later.”

  There was a smile on the Duke’s lips, which echoed the expression in his eyes.

  “My house?” he said with raised eyebrows. “And would you consider that a respectable place for Miss Thoreau to spend the night?”

  “It would certainly be more comfortable than anywhere I could suggest.”

  “I cannot quite make up my mind,” the Duke said, “whether you are extremely astute, clairvoyant or merely damned impertinent!”

  Philippe Dubucheron’s gesture was too French to need the accompaniment of words.

  “Very well,” the Duke said, rising to his feet. “Give my apologies to Mademoiselle Yvette and assure her that I will express my gratitude for the pleasure of her company in an appropriate manner.”

  “She will be disappointed,” Philippe Dubucheron answered, “but doubtless any hard feelings can be placated in the usual manner.”

  “Of course,” the Duke replied. “And I am sure that tomorrow you will call with the pictures you promised to let me see.”

  “I shall, Your Grace,” Philippe Dubucheron replied.

  The Duke turned to look at Una and found to his surprise that she was not listening to the conversation that was taking place, but staring across the dance floor.

  “I am sure,” she exclaimed excitedly, “that that must be Monsieur Toulouse Lautrec. He looks just as Papa described him to me and he is sketching someone who is dancing.”

  Philippe Dubucheron followed the direction of her eyes.

  “Yes, that is Lautrec,” he answered. “It is not surprising that his family are appalled by his appearance.”

  The dwarf, wearing his bowler hat with his two tiny legs and disproportionately large head, his thick nose on which rested steel-rimmed pince-nez and his bushy black beard, looked grotesque.

  “He cannot help his appearance,” Una said compassionately.

  She would have said more, but she realised that the Duke was standing on his feet and she looked up at him.

  “I am taking you home,” he said quietly.

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  Only as she started to move away from the table, did she realise that Philippe Dubucheron was not following them.

  She looked back in consternation.

  “It’s all right,” he said quickly. “The Duke will look after you and your trunk is at his house.”

  “Where am I – staying?”

  “The Duke will tell you,” Dubucheron replied. “Follow His Grace. He does not like to be kept waiting.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Una picked up her shawl, which she had laid on the back of her chair and hurried after the Duke, who was already wending his way between the tables towards the exit.

  It was impossible to speak as they pushed through the crowds of men, most were in evening clothes and wearing top hats, but amongst them there were some strange types with floppy ties and velvet suits.

  Champagne corks popped and the multi-coloured crowd was reflected along one wall, which was entirely covered with mirrors.

  There was a short pause at the door while the Duke’s carriage was brought to them, then they were driving away and there was more room on the back seat than there had been when it had held three.

  “Thank you very much – for such an interesting and – exciting evening!” Una said in a soft little voice.

  “You enjoyed it?” the Duke asked.

  “I enjoyed dining at your house more than anything I have ever done,” she replied. “But the Moulin Rouge is something I had always longed to see.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Papa told me about it and even the girls at school had heard of it.”

  “School?” the Duke asked.

  “I have been at school in Florence for the last three years,” Una explained.

  The Duke was silent for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “Did Philippe Dubucheron tell you to tell me that?”

  Una looked puzzled.

  “No, why should he? But I thought he might have told Your Grace that I came to Paris – because Papa sent for me – only to find that he was – dead.”

  There was a little throb in her voice that the Duke did not miss.

  “Tell me wha
t happened from the beginning.”

  “When Mama died – ” Una began.

  She told him simply and in a few words how her mother had left all her money to pay for her education and how she had been sent to the Convent in Florence.

  Only when her father had sent her a telegram in answer to her letter, telling him that she was too old to stay there any longer, had she come back to France.

  She did not realise that, because she told the story so simply and in so few words, the Duke was immediately suspicious.

  It was all too pat and too glib, he thought. An innocent young girl arrives in Paris to find her father dead and Dubucheron, a notorious procurer, takes her that very night to dine with a Duke.

  If Una found it surprising, he found it incredible and he lay back in the carriage, watching her profile silhouetted against the gaslights as they passed them.

  It had been clever, he thought, of Dubucheron to tell her not to wear a hat when every other woman in Paris had an evening hat, varying from every sort of exotic feather to clusters of artificial flowers.

  Once again the Duke thought that he was being trapped by Dubucheron, but at least, he told himself, the bait was original and not a variation of the same old theme, as Yvette Joyant was.

  He had decided suddenly, although he was not quite certain why, that Yvette not only failed to excite him but that he actually found her repulsive.

  The things she had said to him were lewd and licentious beyond anything he had ever heard in his very varied career.

  He had known that they should have amused him because her deep velvety voice took the edge off them, but all the time she was talking he had been acutely conscious of the young girl sitting on his other side.

  Una had not made the slightest effort to attract his attention or assert her personality.

  Perhaps that was the reason why he found it hard to take his eyes off her.

  But it was just too good a story, he told himself as she finished speaking. However, it would be a pity to show her too quickly that he was not deceived.

  If that was the game she wanted to play, he would go along with it.

  Aloud he said,

  “It must have been a great shock to you to learn when you arrived in Paris that your father was dead.”