The Kiss of Paris

Chapter One ~ 1952“Por-teur! Por-teur!” The train came slowly into the Gare du Nord and from the window Sheena watched the blue-overalled porters with their wide leather belts as they hurried along the platform shouting and gesticulating to the passengers. She was in Paris! She felt her heart leap at the thought. Yet her delight was followed by what was almost a sense of dismay. It was so noisy, so foreign, so big and even the sense of adventure that had kept her alert and excited during the whole of the journey from England was now superseded by the feeling of her own insignificance. Automatically she rose to her feet and reached up to the rack above her head where the smaller portions of her luggage had been put by the porter at Calais. As she did so she caught a glimpse of the gold ring on the third finger of her left hand and felt herself shudder. For a moment she had forgotten that it was there and now, with a sense of urgency and something almost akin to panic, she remembered that she must not forget it. She must remember it all the time – remember the ring and all that went with it! “You’ll be wanting a ring,” Patrick O’Donovan had said only two days ago when everything else had been thought of and her luggage was packed and labelled. “A ring, Uncle Patrick?” she asked him enquiringly. “Sure, me darling girl, it’s usual for a married woman to wear one,” he smiled. “Of course. I had forgotten.” “I’ll be buying you one at the jeweller’s. ’Tis something I’ve never done before, not with all my experience of the fair s*x. Begorra, but I’m all for learning.” He was laughing as if it was all a great joke. But Sheena’s face was serious as she said in a low voice, “I had not thought that I would have to wear a ring.” “Indeed they will be thinking it strange if you appear without one,” Patrick O’Donovan answered lightly and then something in the tense stillness of her figure communicated itself to him. “’Tis not troubling you, Mavourneen?” he said in the soft coaxing tone that she knew so well. “No – no – not really,” Sheena answered, lying because she did not wish him to think her stupid or ready to make a fuss over such a small point. “That’s all right then,” her uncle answered with a note of relief in his voice. “I’ll be away to choose you the symbol of happy wedlock. You had best give me something to show the size of your finger.” Sheena had taken a skein of silk from her workbasket and wrapped it round her finger to find the right size. Patrick O’Donovan had slipped it into the pocket in his waistcoat and gone off whistling. Alone in the damp basement kitchen Sheena had stared down at her finger and then, with an obvious effort, had gone back to the sink to start again on the endless pile of dirty dishes that always seemed to be awaiting her there. * “Por-teur! Por-teur!” She signalled to a small middle-aged man with a drooping moustache and his beret set jauntily on the side of his head. She handed him several packages through the window and then went along the corridor to where the other luggage was being sorted out by an attendant. The woman in front of Sheena tipped the man and Sheena realised that she too would be expected to produce a pourboire. She fumbled in her bag. She had so very few francs left, but Uncle Patrick had been reassuring when she had pointed out how little money she had for the journey. “They’ll be meeting you in Paris,” he said positively. Now Sheena hoped that he was right, otherwise she had no idea how she could pay for a taxi. With a confidence that she was far from feeling she told the porter that she expected there would be a private car to meet her. “Venez avec moi, mam’selle,” he said and only as he started to walk at a brisk pace down the platform did Sheena realise that he had called her ‘mademoiselle’. Did she look so unmarried, she asked herself, that even a porter could not credit her with the likelihood of a husband? She glanced at her luggage. The labels printed neatly in her own handwriting bore the legend ‘Mrs. Lawson’. “Why Lawson?” she had asked her uncle when he told her what name was to be hers. “Why not?” “It’s such an ordinary name. You might have chosen something attractive.” “But Mavourneen, it’s the one thing we wouldn’t want, something that would draw attention to you and that would remain in a person’s memory. Lawson is a commonplace name belonging to hundreds, perhaps thousands of English people, the sort of name you would never think about again. You understand?” “Yes, I suppose so,” Sheena answered. “But if I had the chance to choose – ” “The day will come, me darling, when you will change your name through your own inclination,” Patrick O’Donovan smiled. “You will take a new one and a man with it and Glory to God, what better chance do you have to find one than living in Paris?” “Are you really suggesting, Uncle Patrick, that I should marry a Frenchman?” Sheena asked. “I am hoping you will marry no one,” Patrick O’Donovan said quickly. “Not while you have me to look after, and I need a lot of looking after, me lovely girl.” “And yet you are sending me away from you,” she answered reproachfully. Patrick O’Donovan turned his face away. Sheena had noticed before that there were times when he had difficulty in meeting her eyes. “It cannot be helped,” he said slowly. “Sure, it cannot be helped.” He had sighed and then risen as if to leave the room, but Sheena had prevented him. “Listen, Uncle Patrick, you know that I don’t want to go to Paris. You know I don’t wish to take this job. I thought you had set your heart on it. If you want me to stay as much as I want to stay with you, then let’s refuse it.” “There are reasons why I can do no such thing.” “But what reasons?” she asked. “Who are these friends who ask such sacrifices of you? And are they friends? Are they not more likely to be people in the position to give orders?” Patrick O’Donovan walked across the kitchen to stand with his back to the fire. Even as he stood there and before he opened his mouth to speak, Sheena knew what was coming, knew by the expression on his face that he was putting on an act and that he was about to say words that came automatically to his lips. “You must be trusting your poor old uncle,” he began. “For haven’t I always done what was the best for you? Ever since that day when you were no higher than my knee and your poor father and mother, God rest their souls, were drowned, I have taken you to my heart and looked after you as though you were a child of my own. Baby Sheena, a poor wee orphan with no one to care for you but meself. I fought for you, me darling, then, and I’ve fought for your interests always. And believe me, as the blessed Saints are me witness, I’m thinking of you now.” Sheena sighed. This was a repetition she knew only too well. This was the line that Uncle Patrick always took when he wanted to get his own way and intended to have it. “Very well,” she said shortly. “‘Lawson’ it will be. And when do I go?” “In a fortnight,” he answered. * Never, it seemed to Sheena, had fourteen days sped past so quickly and now she was here in Paris, starting upon an adventure that filled her not only with apprehension but also with an emotion that was strangely like fear. It was all so unexpected, so unlike anything that she had ever imagined. ‘I shall be a failure,’ she had thought over and over again these past two weeks. And yet now, walking behind the porter, she felt her spirits rising irresistibly. Whatever else happened at least she would see Paris! There was something in the very smell of the Station that was different from anything she had ever known before. There was something exhilarating in the difference in the people, in their voices rising on a high excitable note and in the sudden glimpse of the sunshine across the street where the cars were waiting. It was then she remembered again how little money she had left. Would there be a car? The porter had brought his truck to a standstill. Now they stood irresolute, Sheena looking about her, her blue eyes, fringed with their dark lashes, anxious as she glanced along the row of private cars. Suddenly she became aware that a man was approaching her. He was tall and dark and, as he swept off his hat, she realised that his eyes were very grey against his suntanned skin. “Mrs. Lawson?” It was a question and immediately Sheena began to shake her head. “No – I mean, yes. I am Mrs. Lawson.” “How do you do? I am Lucien Mansfield. Madame Pelayo asked me to meet you.” “How kind – I was hoping that someone would be here.” “The car is just over there,” he said, pointing, and the porter without instructions started off towards it with his truck. “Had a good journey, mam’selle?” “Yes, thank you.” The question was one of entire formality and Sheena, as she followed her luggage towards a large expensive-looking limousine, thought that the man they had sent to meet her was stiff and a little frightening. There was something else about him, something which made her feel that she must be on her guard and careful of everything she said. He must be English, for one thing, she thought, and that in itself was a surprise. Her luggage was swiftly disposed of in the boot of the car and before she could bring out her few remaining francs, the porter had been tipped and dismissed and she found herself sitting on the back seat of the car with a soft fur rug over her knees. A chauffeur wearing a cockaded cap closed the door and then they were driving away into the sunshine along the streets with tall grey houses on either side, shops filled with colourful merchandise and people sitting outside little bars at tables on the pavement. For a moment Sheena forgot herself, her destination and her companion. She just looked, stared and absorbed her first impressions of Paris. Then with a little start she realised that the man sitting beside her was watching her. “This is your first visit abroad?” he asked. “Yes – yes, my first.” “You have always lived in England before?” She was about to contradict him, to tell him that Ireland was her home, and then she remembered that Uncle Patrick had admonished her, ‘say as little about Ireland as possible, Mavourneen. Remember that, thick-skinned though these English are, they must realise by now that we Southern Irish hate them’.” “Yes, I have lived in England,” Sheena replied stiffly. “Do you speak French?” ‘Was this a catechism?’ she thought suddenly and if so what right had he to catechise her? She felt her chin lift a little. The pride of the O’Donovans was very easily aroused. “I speak fluently,” she answered coldly. “Although I cannot, of course, be sure that my accent is impeccable.” “I am glad about that,” he replied. “One misses so much that is worth seeing in Paris and in France if one cannot speak the language.” He smiled as he spoke and Sheena felt her resentment evaporate as quickly as it had been aroused. “There is so much I want to see,” she said confidently. “I have always dreamed about Paris. Paris in the spring – the chestnut trees, the Seine, the Louvre, all the wonderful things one reads about. And now I am here!” “And anxious, of course, to see your charges.” She felt as though he deliberately poured cold water on her excitement. “Yes, of course – my charges,” she replied. “Will you tell me about them?” “You will see them soon enough. They are nice children, if a trifle spoiled.” The car turned, as he spoke, down an avenue where all the trees were in bud. It was beautiful and, as Sheena caught her breath at the sight of it she hardly heard her companion’s voice. “You must have thought yourself very fortunate to get this job.” “Yes – yes, of course I did,” she told him hurriedly. “You have had a lot of experience?” Again it was a question and again Sheena felt resentful that he should catechise her. With a little effort, because she found it difficult to challenge him, she turned to look into his eyes.