An Innocent in Paris

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1903-3

It was a footman who had come in answer to her summons, the same footman Gardenia thought, who had brought in the tray of food for her. For a moment Gardenia hesitated, and then she spoke slowly in her excellent almost classical French.

“Will you please ask the housekeeper to attend me,” she said. “I am not well enough to join Her Grace’s party and I would like a room prepared for me upstairs.”

The footman bowed.

“I will see if I can find the housekeeper, mamselle,” he replied.

It was a long wait. Afterwards Gardenia wondered if the housekeeper had retired to bed and had been forced to rise and dress herself again. At length she appeared, a rather blowsy-looking woman, big-bosomed with somewhat untidy greying hair, not at all the austere type of her English counterpart that Gardenia had somehow expected.

“Bonjour, mamselle, I understand you are the niece of Madame?” the housekeeper said.

“That is correct, but I am afraid that I have arrived at rather an inopportune moment. Of course I am impatient to see my aunt, but, as I am rather tired and indisposed after the long journey, I think it would perhaps be wise if I waited until the morning when my aunt will be less occupied.”

“It would indeed be much wiser,” the housekeeper agreed. “If you will come with me, mamselle, I will show you your bedroom. I have already told the footmen to take your trunk there.”

“Thank you very much,” Gardenia said gratefully.

The housekeeper turned towards the door and opened it. It seemed to Gardenia as if a loud sound entered the room like a whirlwind. There were high shrill voices, men shouting, a woman’s shriek, a crash as of some heavy object followed by a burst of raucous laughter.

What was happening outside in the hall Gardenia could not imagine.

The housekeeper closed the door.

“I think, mamselle, it would be easier if you would condescend to come up the back way. There is a door from this room that leads to the back staircase.”

“Yes, I think that would be wiser,” Gardenia agreed.

She would not have liked Lord Hartcourt to think her a cowar but she shrank with every nerve of her body from going out into that noise and turmoil and running the gauntlet of that shrill insistent laughter.

The housekeeper crossed the room. She must have touched a secret switch for a part of the bookcase swung open and there was a doorway leading into a long narrow passage.

Without any comment she let Gardenia follow her through the opening and pulled the bookcase to again. Then she led her along the passage and up a narrow rather dark staircase. She passed the first floor and, climbing still higher, reached the second.

Here the housekeeper seemed to hesitate at the door of the landing and Gardenia thought that she was about to open it. Then, after listening for a few seconds, she changed her mind.

“I think a room on the next floor would be best, mamselle.”

They climbed again and this time the housekeeper opened the door on the landing at the top of the stairs onto a very well-lit and heavily carpeted passage.

Moving along they reached the main staircase. Gardenia glanced over the banisters. She could see, it seemed to her, there were men and women bulging out from all floors beneath her.

The noise of their voices was deafening and it was even hard to hear the violins above the roar of their laughter.

There was something rather frightening about the laughter itself. It sounded strange and uncontrolled, as though the people who laughed had drunk too much. Then she dismissed the thought from her mind. It was unpleasant and disloyal. These people were French. It was obvious that being a Latin race they were not so reserved as the English would be in similar circumstances.

Then she almost ran from the banisters to follow the housekeeper, who had opened the door of a small room.

“Tomorrow, mamselle, I am sure Her Grace will want a bigger and better room prepared for you,” the housekeeper said. “Tonight this is the best we can do. I made a mistake in the room I told the men to carry your trunk to. I will find them and send them here immediately. Is there anything else you wish?”

“No, thank you and I am very grateful to you for the trouble you have taken.”

“It is no trouble at all, mamselle, I will get her Grace’s personal maid to tell you in the morning when Her Grace is awake. She will not wish to be disturbed before midday at the earliest.”

“I can quite understand that after a party,” Gardenia commented.

“The housekeeper gave a little shrug of her shoulders.

“Here it is always a party,” she said and then went from the room.

Gardenia sat down on the bed. She felt as if her knees were too weak to carry her any further.

“Here it is always a party.”

What did that mean?

Would she be expected to live at this high pressure, to join in with the laughing crowds whose noise seemed to increase rather than diminish although it was past two o’clock in the morning?

Had she made a mistake? So should she not have come?

She felt as though a cold hand clutched her heart. It was almost physical in its intensity. But what else could she have done? Where else could she have gone?

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

“Who is there?”

She did not know why she was frightened. It was just that for a moment the fear of all that laughter downstairs seemed to bring her uncertainly to her feet, her voice trembling and her heart leaping in her breast

“Votre baggage, mamselle.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Gardenia breathed to herself.

She had forgotten that her trunk had been sent to the wrong room. She opened the door. Two footmen carried in her shabby trunk and, setting it down at the end of the bed, they undid the worn straps and with respectful bows left the room.

“Bonne nuit, mamselle,” they chorused as they went.

“Bonne nuit et merci,” Gardenia replied.

As the door closed behind them, she rose to her feet. Crossing the room, she turned the key and locked the door. It was something that she had never done in her life before.

But now she locked herself in and locked out whatever might be outside. Somehow only with the door fastened did she feel safe. Only with the key held tightly in her shaking hands did she know that the laughter and noise downstairs could not encroach on her and not come near her.