I'll See You in Paris (11 page)

GD: That table won't be the only thing smacked if you don't knock it off.

WS: Mrs. Spencer, please continue.

GD: I can't! I've completely lost my mind!

WS: Most would agree.

GD: Not my mind! My train of thought! You have me so befuddled. You're a wretched conversationalist, you know that?

WS: My conversational skills are probably why I've become a writer. Come, Mrs. Spencer. Please sit back down. That's better. Now. Please tell me why you were a welcome [Clap] distraction at Blenheim.

GD: Because the poor girl didn't want to marry the man in the first place. Then he installed her in that god-awful monstrosity of an alleged home.

WS: Most find Blenheim unmatched in beauty and grandeur in the United Kingdom. Even the world, if not for Versailles. The royal family envies the palace. It's better than anything they've got.

GD: I don't give a damn about the royal family and their shit tastes. They've never had to live there. And they should count themselves lucky. Otherwise they'd be even more miserable than they already are.

WS: But the stately rooms? The gardens? The grottos?

GD: The palace was oppressive. Coon had a predilection for melancholy and that home sucked every ray of sunshine from the tender girl's soul. She cried every night. She prayed for God to turn her into a vestal virgin.

WS: Vestal virgin?

GD: A woman freed of the social obligation to marry and bear children. Of course she was far too late for that.

WS: Sounds like Coon had a glum personality.

GD: She wasn't a zippy sort, no. But let me tell you, when the Marlboroughs separated and she moved to London, Coon flourished as a single hostess.

WS: And after she made her move, you swooped in and made yours.

GD: I've haven't swooped a day in my life.

WS: When Coon left Sunny, and was finally happy, you were free to pursue your best friend's husband, free to consummate the simmering attraction you'd felt for a decade.

GD: Attraction. Ha. Give me some credit.

WS: Your stepson reported that you behaved shamelessly toward Sunny, even when he was married to your Coon.

GD: You mean Henry? He's about as reliable as a drunk. Did I flirt with Sunny? Yes. At times. Just as I flirted with five to eleven other men in a given evening. There's nothing wrong with a little Parisian flirtation, as my mother always said.

WS: Parisian flirtation usually refers to sex. Note to manuscript. Mrs. Spencer's face has reddened.

GD: Listen here, you tosser. In those years, Coon meant everything to me. Could you imagine? If I'd been in love with my best friend's husband?

WS: Yes. I can imagine. “She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making.”

GD: ARE YOU QUOTING EDITH WHARTON AT ME?

WS: Ah. The woman has a sharp ear for literature.

GD: Edith was my friend. And she would be outraged, a hack like you vomiting up her sublime words.

WS: So you're angrier at my quoting of Edith Wharton than with the implication you stole your best friend's husband?

GD: For God's sake, yes! Because the implication is so ridiculous. Coon was my best friend.

WS: But it happens, Mrs. Spencer. It happens all the time.

GD: Stealing someone's husband is an awfully big responsibility. If a woman chooses that path, she'd better be damned sure the man is worth the effort. And lest there be any doubt, most men are decidedly not.

 

Sixteen

THE GEORGE & DRAGON

BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

NOVEMBER 2001

 

Gladys's mother was pregnant with her fourth and final daughter, Dorothy, when her marriage took its final hit.

The pregnancy itself was a source of contention, as Edward Deacon suspected the baby wasn't his. Not an unreasonable fear given the hours his wife spent in Abeille's company, and the time Edward saw the two of them exiting a lingerie shop together. And who was the first person to lay eyes on baby Dorothy after she was born? Abeille himself. Edward was inflamed.

“All French women receive these platonic visits from their men friends while they are lying-in,” Florence claimed, always quick to chalk up bad behavior to Parisian sensibilities.

His wife wasn't French and so Edward remained unswayed by the country's customs. Adultery was adultery, especially when one was from the States.

Not that Florence or Abeille were concerned by Edward's fury or his threats. To them he was nothing but a silly, harmless dilettante. They certainly did not consider him the type of man who'd chase his wife's lover about a room and then shoot him three times through a couch.

—J. Casper Augustine Seton,

The Missing Duchess: A Biography

Annie found Gus in the same corner booth, sipping his same type of cider. How many years had he done this for? she wondered.

“Hello,” she said and tapped his shoulder. “I hoped I'd find you here.”

“This is a refreshing development,” Gus said, removing his glasses. He folded up the paper in front of him and went to stand.

“No, please,” she said. “Don't get up.”

Annie sat across from him.

“Mind if I join you?”

“I believe you already have,” he said with a smile, an echo of her words from the day before. “So, working hard as per usual?”

“Work?” She blinked.

“Your thesis?”

“Oh right.” She sagged in her seat. “Yes. Well, I'm kind of stalled out right now.”

“Perhaps you should focus on your research,” he said with a wry smile. “Instead of whatever you've been getting into today. Your clothes are filthy.”

Annie glanced down. It looked like someone had dredged her in dust. Pinching together her fingers, she lifted a string of cobwebs from her jeans.

“I borrowed one of the inn's bikes this morning,” she said. “I guess I'm a messy cyclist. Now that you mention it…”

“What did I mention?”

“I went past the Grange today on my ride.”

In lieu of a response, Gus took a sip of cider.

“You know, the Grange?” Annie said, forehead lifted. “Home to Mrs. Spencer? And to Pru?”

He nodded, lips pinched together, gray eyes holding steady with hers.

“You didn't tell me it was, like, around the corner,” she said.

Gus cleared his throat.

“Didn't I?” he said.

“You did not.” Annie shifted in her seat. “And, boy, did I get the wrong impression of the place. You made it seem so massive. Hulking.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. But it was pretty much just a regular house. What's up with that? The story. What I saw.” Annie held her hands at two different levels. “They don't match up.”

“I don't recall ever commenting on its size.”

“But what about Pru? When she walked through, she felt like the home was changing and growing around her.”

“She did, but in a way that had little to do with verifiable square meters.”

“And the inside, it was…”

Gus's eyebrows shot up.

“The inside was
what
?”

Annie stopped, then added in a lame mumble: “Probably more cavernous.”

“Any other observations?” Gus asked, eyeing her, sizing her up. “About the property? From the road, naturally. Because you have more sense than to trespass.”

“You bet! Tons of sense! I'd never do anything like that!”

“That's a relief,” he said. “So is this why you tracked me down? To express your disappointment in the home's size and make promises as to your ability to follow laws?”

“Yes. That.” Annie pulled the book from her backpack, careful not to let any stolen papers sneak out. “But also
The Missing Duchess
. I need more.”

She slid the book toward Gus.

“For example,” she said. “How long after Pru came to work for Mrs. Spencer did the author show up? Didn't you say it was around Christmastime?”

“Yep,” he said, and drained the last of his cider. “Late December. Ned! Hey, barkeep! How 'bout you bring me two more? One for now, one for the road.”

“Sure thing, mate,” the man said and sniggered amiably. “One for the road. As if you could ever hold out that long.”

Gus turned back toward Annie.

“So,” he said. “Is this how it aims to be? The young researcher batters the local fogy with questions, no time for pleasantries and how-do-you-dos?”

“I'm sorry,” Annie said with a wince. “My manners are, shall we say, blunted these days. My mom would be appalled. Let's start over. So. How are you this afternoon?”

“I'm adequate.” He smirked.

“Nice weather, eh?”

“Not particularly.”

“So, uh, what do you do in your free time? Hobbies or anything?”

“You're looking at it.”

“What about a wife? Kids?”

Or grandkids, she did not add. Gus was the right age to have them but Annie had sufficiently offended him for one day. No use pointing out that she saw him as old.

“Kids?” he said. “Nah. Not me.”

“Oh, I, uh. I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Sorry? Why? It's not an affliction, merely a fact. I'm close with my niece. She's damned good enough for me.”

“Sounds like you made the right decision, then,” Annie said awkwardly.

She was pretty wretched at this pleasantry business, his requested how-do-you-dos.

“No wife, either,” Gus said. “And before you ask, I've never been married because I never found the right woman. Simple explanation for a lifetime of questions.”

Annie tried to conjure up an artful response.

Sorry, mate.

The game's not over.

In the next life, maybe less booze.

“So, this banter is going well,” she said with a rigid smile.

Suddenly Annie wished
she
had a drink in front of her and contemplated flagging down Ned.

“Bloody sad,” Gus said.

“Well, I've heard marriage is more trouble than it's worth. Parenthood too. My mom—”

“What? No. Not that. On the telly.”

Annie looked at the screen above the bar. On instinct, her stomach clenched.

The feelings never changed, no matter how many times she watched the footage. A second plane into a building. The smoke-crush of the towers to the ground. Mayhem erupting on camera. All the mayhem that could not be seen. Even after a hundred viewings it didn't seem real.

“Jesus,” she said, recoiling with the impact.

Here they were, nearly two months out, and the news would not move on, not even in some other country.

“Haven't the faintest why they keep showing it,” Gus said.

“I agree.” Annie's eyes remained glued to the screen. “It's messed up.”

“Did you know anyone?” He pointed toward the television. “Lost that day?'

“Yes,” she said. “No one close. But yes.”

She had a friend, a sorority sister named Megan, who died in one of the towers. Megan worked a bond-trading desk, whatever that meant, and was engaged to be married. She would always be that. Engaged. Her future lost in the rubble.

Most people who lived on the East Coast knew someone who worked at the World Trade Center, or someone who knew someone. Megan was a few years ahead in school so they weren't close, despite being “sisters.” But it was hard not to be sad about her death. And harder still not to feel like a jerk, as though Annie were using Megan for some twisted claim to fame.

“I'm sorry,” Gus said. “About your friend. A damned tragedy.”

“Thanks. And it was. But like I said, we weren't close.”

“Doesn't make it any less awful.”

“I guess you're right. It feels weird—unnatural—to think she's not around.”

She heard the quiver in her own voice.

“And yet,” Gus said. “The deaths carry on.”

“It really is sickening how often they replay the footage. Here's hoping a celebrity does something awful ASAP.”

“I was referring to the new deaths,” Gus said. “The servicemen and women. All those young people now going off to war, and to what end?”

Her face blanched.

“Sorry, Annie, I know he's your president and all,” Gus said. “But I'm suspicious. I mean, hell, not too hard to get a nation behind you if everyone's afraid and desperate to believe in something.”

Annie covered her mouth with a hand. Desperate. Is that what they were?

Eric was fine. He would be fine. At any rate, he was at that moment safe, on a float, in the middle of the ocean. Annie had nearly convinced herself that it was the
only
place he'd be until they saw each other again.

“The prez had to do something, right?” Gus continued. “Make a show. And people are rallying because revenge is sweet. It's like what Mrs. Spencer said about Hitler. ‘Well, he had the whole world up in arms!'”

“I hardly think Bush is Hitler.”

“No, no, of course not. I don't mean to get political. I know this is a sensitive topic for you Yanks. Easy to criticize when it's someone else's damned country. Even if we're sticking our necks in it, too. Blimey, Annie, you're downright green. I'm the biggest arse around.”

“Don't, uh,” Annie sputtered. “It's just, um, unpleasant. Sad. Whatever your politics. Sometimes I don't even know what to think myself.”

Gus nodded, took a sip of cider.

“‘The war has not accustomed me to death,'” he said, changing the tenor of his voice.

“Proust?” she said.

“Bingo.” He pointed the glass toward her. “Mrs. Spencer's favorite. I adore you bookish girls.”

“I'm engaged,” she blurted. “To a marine. He's on his way to Afghanistan right now. That's why I got so upset about the war comment.”