Alone In Paris Read online

  “I find it difficult to believe,” Una replied, “but I had not seen him for three years and I think he – must have – changed.”

  “Why should you think that?”

  “His studio was not the sort of place he would have – tolerated when Mama was alive.”

  “So the sight of his studio prevented you from being unhappy?”

  “I was unhappy,” Una said, “but somehow I felt as if I had lost Papa – a long time ago.”

  Her voice held just the right note of regret and her explanation was logical and, the Duke thought, understandable.

  Again he told himself that it was all too glib with too many coincidences.

  It was a coincidence that she should have arrived in Paris on the same day that he had, that just the sort of picture he liked to buy was available and that he himself had no particular plans for the evening.

  Of course Dubucheron had had this girl up his sleeve, waiting for some mug to come along and find her different from the ordinary prostitute.

  Besides, what girl coming straight from a Convent would go off alone with him in a carriage, with nowhere to stay except, as Dubucheron intended, with him?

  It would have been inconceivable for the Duke to take a woman who was his mistress to any of his other houses, but Paris was different.

  He had always made it quite clear both to his Comptroller and to his friends that in Paris he reserved the right to act as he pleased with no questions asked.

  When a little over a year ago he had been amused by a very delectable and charming dancer from the Théâtre de Variétés, she had stayed with him for a month.

  Then, when he returned to England, she had moved back to her own apartment.

  Dubucheron was obviously aware of this, yet the Duke thought that he had contrived that Una should move in with him in a manner that was a little clumsy.

  The trunk left at his house, the information that he had made no arrangements for her before she came to dinner and her manner in being ready to go with him without explanation were all too contrived and he wondered what Dubucheron would have done if his choice had fallen on Yvette.

  Then he told himself that that had obviously been provided for as well.

  “I am honoured,” he said aloud, “that you should be willing to stay with me. You might have insisted that we get to know each other a little better first.”

  Una had been looking out the window.

  Now she turned her face to his, but it was too dark for him to see the expression in her eyes.

  “Stay with – you?” she queried. “Am I to stay with Your Grace – at your – house?”

  “If that is what you would like to do.”

  “But of course – it would be wonderful!” she answered. “I never dreamt – I never thought – that you would – invite me to be your guest.”

  This, the Duke thought, was really straining credulity too far.

  “I think that is perhaps what Dubucheron intended,” he said, “and you must have been aware of it.”

  “He was very kind to me – when he found me in the studio,” Una answered, “and he told me when he sold Papa’s picture that he would come back and make – plans for my – future.”

  The Duke did not speak and she added,

  “You see – I had arrived in Paris with – very little money – and it was so very fortunate that Monsieur Dubucheron could sell Papa’s picture.”

  “Very fortunate indeed,” the Duke said. “And Dubucheron told you that he would give you the money tomorrow?”

  “Yes, that is what he said,” Una answered, “so I should have been able to pay for – anywhere I stayed the night.”

  “And before you came to my house, where did you change into your evening gown?”

  “Monsieur Dubucheron took me to his Art Gallery.”

  She gave a little laugh.

  “It seemed a strange place to change one’s clothes when it was closed – but I could wash there and unpack my trunk in his office.”

  The Duke did not believe a word of it.

  He was quite certain that the whole story was a fabrication from start to finish.

  He gave Dubucheron and Una full marks for working out a tale that sounded like an adventure story in some schoolgirl’s journal.

  Who had ever heard of someone changing their clothes in an Art Gallery?

  And who indeed, except Dubucheron, would have thought of anything so extraordinary as bringing a woman’s trunk to the place where she had dinner?

  He wanted to laugh aloud, but he told himself that to expose Una’s ingenious little tale too soon would spoil the fun.

  They arrived at his house in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré and, as they entered the hall, the Duke said to the waiting servants,

  “I understand that a trunk was left here before dinner?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” the Clerk of the Chambers replied. “The gentleman said he might call for it later tonight.”

  “I have arranged for Mademoiselle Thoreau to stay here,” the Duke said. “Have her trunk taken to the Chambre des Roses and unpacked.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  “Let us go into the salon,” the Duke said to Una and he walked ahead to open the door before an attentive footman could reach it.

  The salon was fragrant with flowers and only a few lights were left burning.

  It looked so lovely that Una stood gazing round her with an expression of admiration on her face, her eyes shining.

  The Duke went to a corner of the room where on a tray was an opened bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a silver dish containing pâté sandwiches.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Una replied. “It was such a delicious dinner – and I would like to thank your chef for cooking something so delectable.”

  “You can thank him tomorrow,” the Duke said. “I am sure he will be delighted.”

  He walked back towards her as he spoke and handed her a glass of champagne.

  “Please – I would rather not have any – more,” she said. “I am not used to drinking anything but – water.”

  The corners of the Duke’s mouth twisted.

  “Champagne is the water of France.”

  “So I have always been told,” Una replied, “but I am afraid – it might go to my head.”

  “Has that happened before?”

  She gave a little laugh.

  “Never, as it happens, but then I have never had more than an occasional sip of champagne to drink! I should feel very ashamed – if I felt muzzy or stupid.”

  “Ashamed?” the Duke enquired.

  “I think drink can be horrible and degrading,” she said in a different tone of voice.

  As she spoke, she had a sudden vision of the empty bottles in her father’s studio and the terrible blotched painting standing on the easel.

  The Duke guessed what she was thinking, remembering that Dubucheron had said that her father had died when he was dead drunk.

  He sat himself in a chair and asked,

  “Now that you are staying with me, what do you intend to do about it?”

  As he asked the question, he knew quite well how it would have been answered by Yvette and it amused him to speculate how long this girl would keep up her pretence of being so innocent.

  Una looked at him with an expression of perplexity in her eyes.

  Then, as he did not suggest it, she sat down a little nervously on the edge of a chair.

  For a moment she did not speak and then suddenly her expression altered.

  “Now I – understand,” she said. “You must have thought me very – stupid.”

  “In what way?” the Duke asked.

  “I told Monsieur Dubucheron that I must find a job of some sort, so as to earn money, and yet it never struck me that I could find one with you.”

  “What are you suggesting you should do for me?” the Duke asked.

  “I-I am not quite – certain,” she repli
ed. “When I was sitting in the studio while Monsieur Dubucheron was selling Papa’s picture, I thought that the only possible thing I could do would be to teach children to speak English. But then – ”

  She stopped and the Duke prompted,

  “Then what did you think?”

  “I was afraid perhaps I looked – too young.”

  “And what do you imagine you could do for me?”

  “I could write your letters. I really write very well.”

  “I have an excellent Comptroller who does them,” the Duke replied, “and if necessary he has a secretary, who I believe has been employed for some years when we are in Paris.”

  Una thought for a moment and then she gave a little sigh.

  “There are so – many things I cannot do well,” she said, “and anyway, I do not expect you would want them.”

  “Such as?” the Duke asked.

  “I can play the piano a little. I can paint, but it is very amateurish and Papa said that I would never make an artist.”

  “I could hardly expect you to paint pictures for me,” the Duke said, “and I am sure that Dubucheron can supply me with any painting that takes my fancy.”

  “No, of course not!” Una agreed. “I was only trying to tell you – what I cannot do.”

  “Then suppose we skip that and go to what you can do?”

  She gave him an agonised little look.

  “The truth – is,” she said in a forlorn voice, “that, although Mama spent so much money on my education, I cannot – think how to use – any of it!”

  “Have you ever looked in the mirror?” the Duke asked.

  She stared at him in surprise and then she answered,

  “But of course! When I do my hair.”

  “Look into it now,” he said, “and tell me what you see.”

  Una rose to her feet.

  Then, because she was not very tall, she stood on tiptoe to look between the Sèvres clock and the other ornaments on the shelf at the huge gilt-framed mirror that hung above the marble mantelpiece.

  She stared at her reflection and thought that she had never seen herself with such an alluring background. With its painted ceiling, the pictures on the walls and the heavy French silk curtains, it was just the sort of room she had always longed to live in and that her mother would have loved too.

  “Well?” the Duke asked from behind her.

  She turned to flash him a smile.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I was not looking at myself. I was looking at your wonderful room. It is just like one of Boucher’s pictures – and I feel that I look almost like Madame de Pompadour. You remember the one he painted of her?”

  “Perhaps that is something you could be,” the Duke suggested.

  “But the King loved her and there is no King in France today,” Una replied. “And if I was Madame de Pompadour, I feel that – I would never be clever enough to suggest that the Sèvres china should be made pink like these lovely vases on your mantelpiece.”

  She put out her fingers to touch them very gently.

  Watching her, the Duke thought that she had a grace of movement that must have been taught in a dramatic academy. It was impossible for it to be natural.

  Una gave a sigh that was a sound of delight.

  Then she said,

  “I have a feeling I am keeping you up and you told Monsieur Dubucheron that you were tired. I am tired too, but everything here is so lovely that I want to touch your treasures, look at them – and tell myself stories of why they were made!”

  “Even so, you would like to go to bed?” the Duke asked.

  “They will all be here – tomorrow,” Una replied in a rapt little voice.

  Then, as if she suddenly remembered what they had been talking about, she added,

  “Thank you very much – for having me here and by tomorrow, when I am not so sleepy, perhaps, I can think of how I can work for you.”

  The Duke rose slowly to his feet and seemed about to speak, but before he could do so, Una clasped her hands together.

  “I do hope that – Mama knows I am here,” she said. “She would be so thrilled that I am staying with an Englishman like those she knew when she was a girl and I think that she would be – happy because, although Papa is dead, I am safe – with you.”

  She looked up at him and there was a little pause while the Duke looked into her eyes in a searching manner that once again made Una feel shy.

  Then he said in a voice that had a note of surprise in it,

  “Go to bed. We are both tired. We will talk about this tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  Una was awakened by a maid coming into her bedroom, carrying her breakfast on a tray.

  She put it down beside the bed and went to pull back the curtains so that the sunshine flooded in.

  For a moment it was difficult for Una, still drowsy with sleep, to think where she was. Then with a leap of her heart she remembered.

  She was in Paris and she was staying with the Duke of Wolstanton!

  She sat up looking with delight at the neatly laid breakfast tray with its silver coffee pot and hot croissants.

  “What is the time?” she asked.

  “Dix heures, m’mselle,” the maid replied.

  “Ten o’clock?” Una exclaimed in consternation. “How can it be? How can I have slept so late?”

  “M’mselle was tired,” the maid replied. “It’s ever such a lovely day and very warm.”

  “Ten o’clock!” Una repeated and then added tentatively, “Perhaps – Monsieur le Duc will think it – rude that I have not gone down to breakfast.”

  The maid smiled.

  “Monsieur has gone riding, m’mselle, so there is no hurry.”

  Una felt a sense of relief.

  She realised that last night she should have asked the Duke what time she should have breakfast and if she should have it with him.

  She could not remember ever before having breakfast in bed except when she was ill. When she had lived at home with her father and mother, they had always breakfasted together at eight o’clock.

  She realised now that she had felt very tired the preceding evening.

  It was not only the long journey when it had been difficult to sleep on the train, but also the emotions of the day had all taken their toll.

  First the shock of her father’s death and the realisation that she was suddenly alone and had nowhere to go.

  Then there had been the excitement of dining with the Duke and going to the Moulin Rouge, which she thought in retrospect was even more fantastic and more disreputable than she had expected it to be.

  It was only when she was undressed and in bed that she had thought it had perhaps been very reprehensible of her to have visited a place of entertainment so soon after her father’s death.

  Then she asked herself in a practical manner what else she could have done.

  She knew instinctively that Monsieur Dubucheron and also the Duke would have thought it very tiresome if she had sat miserably mourning her father and had insisted on staying at home alone.

  Then she remembered that she had no home and, if she had not done what Monsieur Dubucheron suggested, she had a feeling that he would not even have offered her the hospitality of his Art Gallery.

  She was perceptive enough to realise that beneath his jovial and, when the Duke was there, ingratiating manner. Monsieur Dubucheron was ruthless and determined to get his own way.

  She thought that he would not hesitate to keep the sale of her father’s paintings for his own advantage if she did not do what he wished.

  She was almost shocked at having such suspicions about anyone, especially of accusing someone like Monsieur Dubucheron of being what was to all intents and purposes dishonest.

  But Una was intelligent and she could not help asking herself what would have happened to the money gained by the sale of her father’s paintings if she had not turned up at that precise moment in his studio.

  It seemed unlikely
that Monsieur Dubucheron, who, if he had ever known of her existence and had never seen her, would have put himself to a great deal of trouble to find her and hand over the money which was legally hers.

  ‘I must do what he wishes,’ she thought a little apprehensively and wondered how long the money, when she received it, would last.

  Of course it all depended on how she spent it and she thought how very fortunate it was that the Duke had been kind enough to have her to stay.

  She wondered whether many other men would have been so generous to a girl they had met for the first time, especially someone who shared so little of his interests.

  ‘He is not only having me to stay but I also think he is going to find me employment,’ Una thought.

  The whole room seemed golden with sunshine because it was such an exciting idea.

  To live in a house like this and to be surrounded by pictures, such as she had only seen in Art Galleries, was like moving into Paradise.

  She offered up an earnest little prayer that it would not end too quickly.

  She ate her breakfast and washed and then, because the maid had said that it was hot, she dressed herself in the thinnest gown she possessed.

  It was a very simple muslin and actually she had made it herself.

  The nuns, who were characteristically skilled with their needles, had taught her how to sew with tiny almost invisible stitches which to them were traditional.

  Una had copied a gown belonging to one of her friends whose family was exceedingly rich and took their daughter, even though she was not yet a debutante, to the most expensive couturiers in Rome.

  Compared to the other girls, she seemed like a Bird of Paradise amongst a flock of sparrows, but she loved Una and was only too delighted for her to copy her clothes.

  Una was already dressed when the maid came into the room.

  “You should have rung the bell, m’mselle,” she said. “I would have helped you.”

  “I did not think of it,” Una answered. “I am so used to dressing myself.”

  “You look very pretty,” the maid said, “and I am sure that Monsieur le Duc will think so too.”

  “I hope so,” Una replied.

  Then as she went downstairs she wondered if he was back from his ride and thought that if he was, he would be in the salon.