The gendarme chuckles. “That’s what I mean, mademoiselle—you’ve got a mouth. You stand out. People talk.”
“About my pants, apparently.”
He wags his bushy brows. “About your pants, your artwork, your friend—the baron’s daughter. The two of you always together . . . together too much, some say.” Sudden heat sears up the back of my neck at his implication that I’m a degenerate, and a wave of shame nearly drowns out what he’s saying. “Such talk is dangerous these days.”
“Then I guess you’d better stop the damned car,” I rasp, finally finding my voice. “I wouldn’t want to start gossip by being seen in your passenger seat.”
“D’accord,” he says, chuckling. “Suit yourself.”
The gendarme lets me out just before we get to the village, and I slam his door. From there, I rush up the cobbled street past the fountain and the old statue of Lady Liberty. I break into a run at the castle gates, making a beeline for the square tower, taking the stairs two at a time. I want to warn Anna—I want to tell her everything, but when I burst into the records room, her dark lashes are glistening with tears. “Oh, Marthe. I’m so sorry . . .”
Remembering how we left it, I’m sorry too. I start to say that I don’t want to fight about anything ever again, when I realize that she’s clutching an official letter with a Nazi stamp. My heart sinks, thinking it must be about her husband.
Then she gives me the letter, and I see it’s for me.
“The censors already opened it,” she says tearfully. “It’s Henri . . .”
TWENTY-NINE
BEATRICE
Newport, Rhode Island
August 1915
I took the coward’s way out with Max Furlaud, not trusting myself to explain face-to-face that Willie’s amputation changed nothing and everything. It’s true that our marriage had been broken long before the surgery, but somehow the broken pieces still were a marriage, weren’t they?
My letter to Max was not tender, for the shock and guilt had cured me of that stage of my disease. I merely spelled out the bare facts, then added, As my affection for you cannot ripen into more, I think it best to break off relations that might prove too fond. In any case, you would have learned something of the real Beatrice as time went on. And I’m afraid she is a creature far different than your imagination painted her.
A creature far different than my own imagination painted me too, for I was no longer an intrepid lady adventurer in a war zone, but back in the bosom of high society, playing my old part.
“Steady, darling,” I told my son Ashley, supporting his arm at the elbow to help line up his tennis racket. On the other side of the net was some Vanderbilt or Belmont boy, as Newport was positively infested with the cream of society for the summer, all keen for parties and sporting events as if there weren’t any war at all across the sea.
Here at the Chanler villa we were waiting on tenterhooks for news of Willie’s amputation—which had been rescheduled several times now as the doctors consulted. To keep our minds off it, I encouraged my boys to take part in all the sports and games. Would their father—once such an avid sportsman—ever be able to teach them to play tennis now?
Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games in Newport. Clara Simon and Marie-Louise LeVerrier had returned with us to America, carrying nearly one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of French dolls that had been manufactured by wounded soldiers, widows, and refugee children. We were going to auction them off under the aegis of the Lafayette Fund at our next gala, the seating arrangements for which were driving poor Emily Sloane to distraction. “Disaster!” she called, approaching from the veranda. “The Reginald Vanderbilts have both decided to attend.”
The married couple despised each other. Like most estranged couples in our set, they took turns each summer—one in Newport, the other in Europe—so as to avoid unpleasantness. With the war, everyone was now forced into proximity. “I’m afraid they’ll just have to find a way to get along,” I said. “Sacrifices must be made.”
Emily squared her shoulders. “Yes. And in keeping with that theme, I need to tell you something.” Her tone made me think I needed to sit down for this, so I followed her to a sunny bench.
“I have to resign as secretary of the Lafayette Fund,” she said.
“Whyever would you do that?”
“Because I saw my mother last night,” Emily said, so stiffly I thought she might snap. “I was dancing with my father, he accidentally trod on a woman’s shoe, and when he turned to apologize, there she was. This woman who abandoned us both so many years ago . . .”