TWENTY-ONE
BEATRICE
Paris
May 8, 1915
It wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning yet, and guests at the St. James were shouting angrily in the courtyard. Was it too much to ask that news—especially bad news—awaited a civilized hour after coffee and breakfast? Clutching my traveling bag, I asked, “What in the blue blazes is happening?”
Thanks to my moonlit stranger, we’d finally heard from my nephew at the front. Victor had twenty-four hours’ leave in Amiens—no more, no less—so we’d come down early to catch the first train, only to find everyone waving newspapers. “They’ve sunk the Lusitania,” Jack snarled. “Just yesterday afternoon.”
My God. We might’ve been on that steamer and at the bottom of the ocean now. Gulping at how near we’d come to death, I remembered that my husband’s business partner had booked passage on that ship. “Is there news of Mr. Vanderbilt?”
Biting his cigar, Jack shook his head. “Missing and presumed dead.”
My eyes misted as I considered this loss so close to home, and how many others might also be at the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile Emily’s cheeks went pink with patriotic outrage. “This is as good as a declaration of war! The Germans knew perfectly well there were American civilians on that ship.”
My God, Freddy Vanderbilt’s poor wife. I needed to send a word of sympathy. What about Willie? As furious as I was with him, I knew he’d grieve. “I should try to send some cables—some words of condolence.”
“There’s no time.” Jack tapped his watch. “Not if we mean to catch the train. We can’t miss our only chance to see Victor.”
“I’ll send the cables for you,” Emily said, setting her bag down under the plaque commemorating the spot where Marie Antoinette was said to have greeted Lafayette upon his victorious return from America. “I’ll stay behind and take care of it. Just write down what you’d like to say.”
I was grateful beyond words. Mrs. Chapman, however, fretted, “You’re a sweet girl, Miss Sloane, but it isn’t right to leave a young lady behind in Paris to her own devices.”
“Oh, Miss Sloane of all people can be trusted to stay out of mischief for twenty-four hours,” I said. In any case, Emily had made up her mind, and after a few hastily scribbled lines, we were off.
Khaki-clad Tommies crowded every car of our train to Amiens. Once known as the Venice of the North, it was now a veritable encampment of the British Army, who had commandeered hotels and directed a fleet of hospital ambulances to ferry wounded from the front lines. It was, in some ways, even more hellish than when I had passed through last autumn. Rubble heaped in the street in front of a row of what we assumed must have been lovely houses once—now they were faceless chasms of brick in collapse, splinters of lumber jutting out like broken bones. Amid this rubble, soldiers coughed and wheezed into ragged handkerchiefs, victims of the new and terrible chemical warfare.
We met Victor at the city’s centerpiece—a magnificent Gothic cathedral that had been spared, thus far, the ravages of war. We found Victor inside, wearing his legionnaire’s uniform, staring up at the tympanum with all the wonder of the architect he’d been training to be. In my nephew’s reverent gaze, I sensed the hint of a pious crusader sent to fight back forces of darkness. And in that moment, I could believe it to be true.
My sister-in-law rushed to embrace him. “Oh, my dear boy!”
Victor wrapped one arm around her, then slung the other arm over his father’s shoulder, and the three pressed their foreheads together in such familial tenderness that I hung back, not wishing to intrude.
From behind me, someone said, “A touching scene.”
I turned to the man who had made it possible. “Why, Captain Furlaud, I hoped to see you again.”
I enjoyed the look of him in the light of day. I gauged him to be not yet forty, with brown hair and clear blue eyes. I liked his fine Gallic nose and wanted to run my sculptor’s thumbs over his jawline, especially now that I knew he’d been too humble by far when we met in the dark. For one thing, I knew the name and the cognac label. What’s more, I knew the bank. Dupont-Furlaud. Here was the scion of a family fortune, and I felt a little satisfaction that I still attracted men of quality, even by chance.
“Now, madame,” he said, “since I’ve kept up my end of the bargain . . . your name?”
“What if I want to be Marthe a little longer?”
“Why the pretense?” He sounded faintly as if he didn’t approve.
“Habit. I’m an actress, you see.”
“A singer, an actress . . .”
“An artist too,” I replied with a grin.
He leaned against one of the pillars. “I have a confession to make.”
“Well, a church is the place to confess . . .”
His mouth turned up at one corner. “I already know who you are.”
No you don’t, I thought, disappointed that the game was already over. Nobody knows who I am. I’ve lived in disguise so long I scarcely know myself.
At my fallen expression, he gave a rueful shrug. “I’m sorry. I had to make inquiries. In wartime a good officer doesn’t pass messages from mysterious foreign women he meets on the street.”
I sputtered. “You think I’m a spy?”
“I think you’re Mrs. William Astor Chanler.”
I’d rather he thought me a spy.
I was fairly certain that I no longer wanted to be Mrs. William Astor Chanler. Especially when it foreclosed all other options . . . But Furlaud went on, apologetically, “I’ve read your husband’s book about his explorations. I thought he was extraordinarily lucky, and now that I meet his wife, I know it to be true.”
“We’re separated,” I said bluntly.
The frank admission shocked us both into silence. This wasn’t something I admitted to new acquaintances. Still, here I was, saying it in public. Saying it to this man, because I wanted him to know. And it was his slow-blooming smile that prompted me to ask, “And is there a Mrs. Furlaud?”
A twinkle came to his eye. “Not yet.”
A moment of delicious possibility floated between us.
Then my nephew called, “Aunt Bea!” Victor bounded over and spun me round against my yelps of protest. When he put me down again, I kissed his cheeks, overcome with his transformation. He was still a big overgrown pup with a gleaming smile, but he’d grown into a strong soldier, and I told him so.
“It’s from digging trenches all day!” he said.
Years ago, when he was still a boy, I’d glanced up from my chair on the lawn of the family estate to see the shadow of him cavorting on the rooftop with perfect sangfroid in an escape from a nest of hornets he’d discovered. Reminding him of the incident, I said, “Look what a hornet’s nest you’ve stirred up this time. All your family crossing an ocean just to set eyes on you.”
Amused, my nephew turned to Furlaud. “Captain, I really must thank you again for getting word to me that my parents were in France.”
“Anything for a fellow Frenchman,” said Furlaud, and when he saw my American nephew’s confusion, he added, “You were wounded in the line of duty, no? That makes you français par le sang versé. French by virtue of spilled blood. One of our customs.”
Victor grinned wider. “Please allow me to introduce you to my family. This is my mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. John Jay Chapman. And this is my—”
“We’re already acquainted,” I interrupted. “The captain rescued me from falling into the Seine.”
“Mon Dieu,” Furlaud said. “How is your hand? I should have asked.”
I smiled. “Oh, it was just a scrape.”
Together the five of us walked the tiled floor of the airy cathedral; the stained glass windows had been removed for fear of damage, but we were able to admire the famous weeping angel, one elbow resting upon a skull, the other upon an hourglass. So realistic was the carving that I wanted to wrench the little marble child away from the horror.
Furlaud asked, “What does it mean, the way the cherub is positioned with an hourglass and skull?”
“The tragedy of mortality, I think,” I answered.
Victor added, “The cherub weeps that we have so short a time to make our lives mean anything.”
Furlaud nodded. “An anthem to this war, if ever there was one.”
Clearing her throat, as if very much not wishing to think about lives being cut short, my sister-in-law asked, “Captain Furlaud, won’t you join us for lunch?”
Furlaud gave a rueful shake of his head. “Thank you, but I am expected back soon.”
“Of course.” I nodded. “We won’t keep you from your duty.”
We said farewell and parted company, but a few minutes later, the captain doubled back again to speak with me privately. “Madame, my duty takes me to Paris rather frequently, where I liaise with the American Hospital and ambulance corps. When next I am there—if you are still there also—won’t you let me take you to dinner?”
I liked this man. I liked myself when I was with him. I’d encouraged this man’s attentions. Nevertheless, the reality of my husband’s family so near, and my fear of their reaction, was a cold dose of reality. I wasn’t free, no matter how much I wanted to be. “I’m afraid dinner would give rise to gossip.”
He flushed like a schoolboy. “Of course. I didn’t mean—” He straightened, then fixed upon me his clear blue eyes. “No. En réalité I did mean it.” He pressed a card into my gloved hand with instructions for how to reach him by telephone. “In case you change your mind.”
Having parted with Captain Furlaud, we took my nephew for an elegant meal of lobster in an oyster mushroom sauce, and Victor was grateful to feel civilized for a change. “I’ve spent so long outdoors exposed to the elements that after this war, if anyone asks me on a picnic, I shall never speak to them again!”
When we asked about his wound, Victor flexed his bicep. “You wouldn’t know a bullet went through it now, save for the scar. It was my own fault.” He put an elbow on the table, as if he’d been eating with unmannerly soldiers far too long. “In the trenches, the bullets sail harmlessly overhead all day long. Sing-g-g and whap whap! We go on boards between the trenches so we don’t sink in the mud, and I got careless attempting a shortcut. I had my tent cover under my arm, just like this.”
He tugged his coat off and bunched it under his arm. “The alcohol lamp and bottle were wrapped inside. All at once, pop! The bottle exploded and the bullet went clean through me. I’ve seen poor chaps shot dead midsentence and drop beside me in a puddle of blood, so I cannot complain.”
My sister-in-law paled and dropped her fork, at which my nephew sobered. “I’m sorry. I’m getting too calm and unfeeling. One has to take the horrors lightly, for otherwise life at war would be an unbearable nightmare.”
“Well, you’re muddling through,” I said, determined to keep his spirits up. “You’re looking well. Isn’t he looking well?”
His shaken parents agreed, and Victor grinned. “That’s because I’m clean for a change. The state of filth in the trenches is unbelievable. I only get to wash my face every two days or so. The rest of the time, my head is crusted with mud.” At hearing this, I presented him with a Lafayette kit, and Victor nearly cooed over the clean pair of socks, as trench foot was the bane of soldierly existence. “You’ve no idea how jealous this is going to make my friends, Aunt Bea.”
“Tell me if you can think of any other useful items to include,” I said.
“The soup cubes Uncle Willie sent have been appreciated and are small enough to ship.”
I sat in mute astonishment that my husband had sent his nephew a care package. The same man who couldn’t spare a letter for his own sons and was too intent on his trip to Switzerland to even help arrange this visit! Not that I begrudged Victor his uncle’s attentions—not at all—but the fact that Willie hadn’t mentioned it was yet another reminder of how much a stranger the man I married had become.
After lunch, walking along the canals, the Chapmans made their case, trying to persuade Victor to let them use the family influence to get him into an all-American flying corps. And when he flatly refused, the Chapmans both looked to me in desperation.
“I’m beginning to suspect some plan is afoot to leave us alone together,” my nephew said, joining me on a sunny park bench where we watched his parents drift in a gondola amongst floating gardens that blossomed with crimson flowers and succulent vegetables. “Am I due for some manner of scolding? If so, I’m going to need a cigarette.”
“Nothing like that.”
He lit up anyway. “French tobacco is so bitter. Uncle Willie sent me this American variety, so now I’m happy as a chimney.”
“You seem to hear from him often . . .”
Victor nodded. “More than anyone else, actually. I hope you’ll thank him for me when you see him.”
I was so sore at Willie that I could hope never to see him again, so I merely smiled, which unfortunately didn’t seem to fool my nephew. Victor pointed to where his parents floated beneath the weeping willows. “They’re so different, you know. My father has hard edges, she has soft ebbs, but they fit like a jigsaw puzzle. Whereas you and Uncle Willie . . .”
“We’re both hard edges.”
He chuckled. “You’re alike. Maybe that’s bad in a marriage.”
Amused by his newfound worldliness, I felt entitled to pry. “Why is the subject of marriage on your mind—have you met some special girl?”
“No,” he murmured, red as a beet.
Ah, there was the boy I knew. “Well, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. Girls love a hero.”
“I don’t feel like much of a hero. I’ve thrown away ten months of my life, neither helping the French nor injuring the Germans, as far as I can see.”
“Surely the stalemate at the front line cannot last.”
Victor puffed his cigarette. “What people don’t want to understand is that the front is like a chain, pulled tight, nailed at two ends. As long as the nails hold, nothing can change.”
“America could change everything.”
He snorted. “But what’s the betting on America joining the war?”
“Public opinion was already teetering before the sinking of the Lusitania . . . now I have to believe President Wilson won’t let the murder of innocent Americans go unavenged. But if he can’t make up his mind . . .” In spite of my resolution not to interfere, I sensed an opening I couldn’t resist. “You might tip the balance a little.”
My nephew laughed. “Me?”
“People like a good story. They want heroes. What you’re doing here matters, but what if you could do more somewhere else?”
Victor’s smile was wry. “You want me to join the aviators when it is perfectly obvious that I’ve been foisted on them by Uncle Willie.” He sighed. “Aunt Bea, when I ask myself whether I can do more than vegetate in a mudhole, I think of my comrades. What right have I to take advantage of my connections when they can’t?”
“The same right any man has to try to win the war. Piloting can’t be characterized as a cushy assignment . . .”
Victor waved this away. “Oh, it’s not as dangerous as they say. I’ve seen aeroplanes nearly every bright day when fifty shells leave white balls in the sky, and not yet have I seen one disabled.”
I wished to disagree, but supposed he knew better. “Victor, an all-American flying corps would send a message that our country stands with her allies. A message our president might finally hear.”
“I’ll think on it. On one condition . . .”
“Name it.”
I expected he might ask for a flask of rum, a package of chocolates, or a crate of oranges for his friends, but he said, “Don’t give up on Uncle Willie just yet. He has regrets.”
“If so, this is the first I’m hearing of it.” I knew how a man behaved when he wanted a woman. More particularly, I knew how Willie had behaved when he’d wanted me. In our courtship, he’d been relentless; thus, his neglect now told me everything. “Your uncle never regrets.”
My nephew stubbed out his cigarette. “He’s too proud to admit it.”
“Well, I have my pride too.”
Victor chuckled. “As I said, you’re just alike . . .”
Except one of us gadded off to Switzerland and one of us is here with the family, I thought. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Victor lowered his head, and his mask of soldierly bravado finally slipped, his voice thickening. “I’ve been real cut up about the death of my friend Kohn. Died in my arms. I was wondering if you could see to it that my letter gets to the family?”
“Oh, Victor, I’m so sorry about your friend. Of course, I’ll see to it.”
He blinked away gathering tears. “Jewish fellow. Brilliant. I’d have liked to show you a picture of him, but Uncle Willie’s camera came four days too late. Now I’ve been taking photographs of all my friends, just in case.”
Just in case . . .
We hated to part with Victor that day. We made certain to take his picture. Just in case. And I was struck again by the impermanence of life, despairing of all the hours already run out.
“I was only gone one day!” I cried upon returning to Paris.
“It isn’t my fault.” Emily stood by the tall windows of our suite, sunlight glinting off her new ring.
“Then whose fault is it that you’re engaged?”
“Oh, please don’t be cross,” Emily said, beaming as a spring breeze wafted the white curtains around her like a wedding veil. “Not when I’m so happy! I wasn’t expecting a proposal—it came quite out of the blue. If you’d been there in that hospital ward where he dropped to one knee . . . you’d know I couldn’t do anything but accept.”
Had she taken leave of her senses? I could understand Lieutenant LaGrange. A young soldier facing death might throw caution to the wind. But Emily had always seemed to be an eminently sensible young woman. As I stood dumbstruck, she said, “You told me every girl deserves a grand romance in Paris . . .”
“Yes, well!” I unpinned my hat in a fit of temper. “You’ve rather skipped over the romance and gone straight to matrimony, haven’t you?”
Emily’s dreamy smile fell away. “Oh, dear, you are cross. I thought you liked Lieutenant LaGrange!”
“I did. I do. Of course I do. It’s just—I despise to be made the voice of reason. This is all so very sudden. Does your father know?”
“Not yet. I have to tell him in person. I have to convince him. Please don’t make me convince you too.”
I sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re certain this is the man you want . . .”
Emily’s eyes burned with conviction. “Amaury is the only man I’ve ever wanted.”
That’s what I thought about Willie, and look where it got me. “Again, I protest this is very topsy-turvy. If one of us was to get into mischief in the twenty-four hours we were apart, it ought to have been me.”
She laughed, throwing herself down next to me on the bed to show off the ring. A family heirloom.
“Well, it’s beautiful,” I said. “And I wish you every happiness.” I was delighted for her. Truly I was. And yet, a melancholy stole over me, because here she was at the eager start of a marriage, while I felt trapped in mine. Perhaps that’s why, after a celebratory dinner during which I made her tell me every detail of the romantic proposal, I stole down to the concierge’s desk to use the telephone.
Captain Furlaud’s voice crackled on the other end of the line. “You changed your mind.”
And I replied with a grin, “A woman’s prerogative.”