Sniffing like the scion of a furniture empire that she was, Emily let her gaze fall upon the worn sofas beneath crystal chandeliers. “I imagine it was more luxurious in Lafayette’s day . . .”
“Snob!” I cried.
Emily stopped before an architectural drawing on the wall that portrayed the original grounds—a once-palatial structure now reduced to this hotel and an inner courtyard. “I suppose if I squint, I can imagine beautiful ball gowns, powdered wigs . . .”
But my attention was captured by a drawing of a faraway fortress called Chavaniac. “This was Lafayette’s birthplace. Quite humble by comparison, isn’t it? Can you imagine what he must have felt coming from a place like that to the splendor of Paris?”
Probably out of place, the way Minnie felt when I abandoned her . . .
Not privy to the emotions roiling inside me, Emily chuckled. “Can you imagine what his wife must’ve thought to discover she was the mistress of that wretched holding?”
“You’re not just a snob. You’re the snobbiest of snobs.”
“I have to be. I’m New Money. You wouldn’t understand.”
Oh, wouldn’t I? “We’re American ladies in France. We’re all New Money here.”
This was still on my mind the next morning when I awakened to sunlight streaming in through the tall windows overlooking the courtyard, where birds chirped and hotel guests took their coffee sans sucre, for the war rationing had already begun. And I wondered what Lafayette and his wife would’ve thought to see the bourgeois rabble chattering over breakfast in the remnants of their old home. While I mused on this, Emily—of course, an annoyingly early riser—had already been down to the desk and back again before I finished dressing.
She returned with word from her French lieutenant, whose promised leave had yet to materialize, and I think it was to hide her disappointment that she asked, “Have you called your husband yet?”
“I suppose it cannot be put off any longer.”
Perhaps I could send a note. Dear Willie, I’m back in France. Surprise! No, he could ignore a note. Better to go directly to his house near the Arc de Triomphe. But what then? My sister-in-law would want to come, and it would be too humiliating to have her see me knock on the black double doors as if I were not, in fact, the lady of the house. Worse, I’d have to knock, because we might find another woman ensconced in my place.
I dared not risk it. I’d have to telephone. I decided to invite Willie to luncheon before we visited the hospital to deliver the much-needed ambulance. I thought it a good plan, because my husband would have to be on his best behavior with his sister present. So I made the call—in French, because the censors cut the line if you spoke any other language. Willie’s manservant answered. “I am not at liberty to say where Mr. Chanler is or when he’s expected back.”
“Why not?” I knew how incorrigible Willie could be. “Is my husband standing beside you, telling you to be rid of me?”
“No, madame. He’s not standing beside me.”
Then he was, no doubt, sitting in his wing chair, sipping at a cognac, reading old racing sheets. Or perhaps Willie was supine on the leather sofa, entangled in the arms of a curvaceous . . . no, better not let my imagination run wild. “Please tell Mr. Chanler that his sister wants to see him.”
If he couldn’t make room for me in his busy schedule of dissolute living, surely he could spare an hour for Elizabeth. I hung up in a temper and with an enormous appetite. The Café de Paris—one of my favorite cabarets—was, to my surprise, quite as crowded as in the old days, even if some of the women were of questionable vocation. Then again, soldiers on furlough inevitably attract women of a certain profession . . . It’s a perfectly predictable economy.
Seated at a table artfully framed by pillars and crimson drapes, my sister-in-law fretted, “We’ve heard no word from Victor. I don’t know if our messages are getting through.”
“I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon,” I said, patting her hand.
Emily stared forlornly into her cup. “What if something’s changed at the front? Lieutenant LaGrange has been refused the leave he was promised . . .”
“It’s gas,” barked Mr. Chapman, slapping down the morning’s communiqué. “The Germans are sending clouds of green poison into the breeze. Hundreds of English officers have been asphyxiated. Canadians and French too. It’s caused complete panic.”
Poison gas was a monstrous violation of the Hague conventions on the rules of civilized warfare. To think of my nephew writhing in a trench, helpless even to fire a shot in self-defense . . . well, it made our work here seem more urgent.