(Lest They Leave - Chapter 2)

[madscenes]

CHAPTER INDEX

CHAPTER 2




“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

With those words, he’d left her hanging by the bar, Charles, like some sad wallflower. All dolled up, with her hair hugging the side of her face in tight finger waves that Claire had spent the better part of the afternoon on helping her achieve, they’d giggled like two, fifteen-year-old girlfriends while taming Sylvie’s short, blond tresses with water and hot iron rods, rather than mistress and maid. Such was the kindness Sylvie had shown her, a belated thank you.

It was Friday night, and half of Paris City was attending the Coffee Baron’s party at his equally inaptly named Manor House, since it wasn’t a true manor, and neither was he a true baron, France had none of those anymore, he was simply a man with money.

Well, sometimes that was enough.

As promised, Friday morning, monsieur Martin had sent her finished party dress to their address by courier, the fickle garment in pale pink taffeta and delicate tulle decked in a sea of sequins, as well as little clusters of freshwater pearls. She looked like one of Charles’ many millions when wearing it.

You’d have to ask whether that wasn’t exactly what she was.

Here she stood, after all, on show, sipping a glass of real champagne, a drink she’d only ever enjoyed under the strict scrutiny of her aunties at their New Year celebrations, toasting each other at midnight, Marguerite constantly telling her to display moderation, while Marceline would remind her of the price, right? The price of greed, the price of carelessness, the price of everything fun, pretty much. The bubbles tickled Sylvie’s nose and she wrinkled it for a moment before taking an even larger sip, making it prickle more, on her tongue, down her throat. Oh, thrilling, wasn’t it? To be a little bit greedy, a little bit careless and having a lot of fun!

If only Charles had been here to share it with her, though chances were, they wouldn’t even manage to enjoy the same thing, standing right next to each other in the same room.

Sylvie sighed.

“What’s the tragedy, sheba?” a male voice asked on her left, making her quickly turn her head. A tall, lanky young man in a suit that at least fitted him to perfection had snuck up on her, catching a cigarette between his lips and exhaling a sizeable cloud of smoke off to the side before looking her up and down, undoubtedly a move he’d made before approaching her, too. Vulture, Marguerite warned at the back of her mind. Predator.

It was probably unfair of her, he could be a nice guy for all she knew.

“Pretty girls like you should be busy laughing and smiling,” he continued after a beat that she didn’t fill with a response, taking another nervous sip of her champagne instead. The nameless man stepped closer, his smoke trailing along. “You know, laughing and smiling or f—,” he carried on.

“Gauthier, get away from my sister,” another voice came from her right, a voice she instantly recognised as Charles’, which made her feel a wave of relief and some other emotion more difficult to pinpoint, exhilaration of some kind, a childish glee. Look, big brother came to my aid.

Her unwanted suitor, the fellow with the running mouth, looked taken aback at first, then downright terrified, enough that he mumbled an apology, didn’t know the girl was a lady, apologies, monsieur Gallard, and scrambled off. When she turned in the direction of the voice, her sequins and little semi-gemstones rustled around her torso, and she found Charles standing a distance away, tall and broad and flanked currently by another gentleman in a suit even more immaculate than his. He wasn’t tall. Or as broad, except around the shoulders. And he looked not a day older than twenty-five, without a hint of stubble; there was no coarseness about him at all. None.

Immediately, Sylvie took a shine to him, a real liking different from anything she’d ever taken to a man before. He seems nice, she thought. Yes, he seems ducky.

“This is Armand Dubois,” Charles introduced him, no pomp or fanfares. “My business partner; his father owns, among other things, some fine coffee plantations in East Africa.”

“Abyssinia,” monsieur Dubois clarified, smiling. He also had a nice smile.

“I used to lead expeditions to Africa,” Sylvie found herself telling him, adding quickly at his briefly uncertain glance sideways at Charles who was a second and a lot of self-control from rolling his eyes at her, “In my imagination.”

“Oh,” monsieur Dubois replied, “Did you like it there?”

Sylvie beamed at him.

“This is my sister, Sylvie,” Charles told Armand Dubois somewhat needlessly, but like that he could cut in before she had a chance of answering. As it happened, she was sure monsieur Dubois had made the connection, he seemed the bright type. Nice and bright and just ducky.

“My pleasure, mademoiselle Gallard,” monsieur Nice and Bright and Just Ducky said.

“Come on, call me Sylvie, a friend of my brother is a friend of mine,” she insisted, catching Charles’ gaze over monsieur Dubois’ head for a moment. He nodded at her with some approval she was convinced he hadn’t shown her all this time she’d been home. It filled her with greater glee than being rescued, like some helpless damsel. It filled her with greater glee than a new wardrobe and speedy dress deliveries. His satisfaction was a promised land, someplace as of yet unexplored that she longed to go.

“Sylvie,” monsieur Dubois repeated her name, inclining his head in modest acceptance. Sylvie finally turned her attention back on him. And because he was polite, most likely, but also because this was a frivolous, silly party with live band and people dancing the Charleston on the terrace, inviting frivolous things like the exchange of the polite ‘you’ for the casual one, he allowed her, “Call me Armand, then.”

“All right, Armand,” she obliged. Where she found the courage, she didn’t know. The guy in the train had made her blush and the nameless gent with the mouth on him had made her fret, but Armand made her smile and step forward to extend her hand to him under Charles’ ever-observant gaze. “Believe it or not, but I’ve never danced the Charleston before. Can you teach me?”


~*~


Luckily, Armand could.

He wasn’t really a dancer, he’d assured her several times throughout the following hour, but instructed her in the steps even so, the kind of lazy twists, the swinging of the arms and the kicking of the feet, back and forth so energetically that she had to wonder how many sequins and pearls would be left on this dress when they were done, if it had been sewn with the Charleston in mind. If anything around here was properly prepared for that. She wasn’t going to bet on it, but she sure had fun!

Charles could always buy her new pearls, right?

When they finally stepped off the dancefloor, she was overheated and sweaty and her finger waves, oh, they were long gone, poor Claire who had put so much effort into them. They’d been kicked right out of her. Sylvie pushed her hair behind her ears to hide the worst damage done, with both hands, a little nervously now that her purpose for being alone with Armand had been fulfilled, and fulfilled to the maximum extent.

Armand appeared to think the same because he asked her, “Are you thirsty? I could fetch you some water.”

She’d like some water, she said. He nodded, patted her naked upper arm and vanished, like Charles had done first. For some reason, with Armand, however, it left her with no fear of abandonment, no doubt that he would return and shortly.

In the meantime, she surveyed the party, there were at least a hundred people here if not more, milling around the old ballrooms in the west wing of the house. The doors between the rooms had been thrown wide open and the great chandeliers were lit, making everything shimmer and shine, diamond-like. The house seemed a whole other character this way, their parents had never held these kinds of parties, socialising was done intimately with them. Audiences rather than festivals, in that sense their father might have been an emperor more than a baron.

Everyone knew what happened to emperors in France, of course. They never made it. Sylvie swallowed hard and turned the other way, observing a small cluster of girls powder their faces, one refreshing her lipstick in full public. Flapper girls. Despite her hair, Sylvie had never belonged to that group either, she hadn’t truly belonged anywhere, had she? School, the academy, maybe, the sisters of the Order and then the aunties.

No, Paris was foreign to her; Parisiennes were another race of women. Clothes didn’t make people, no matter how fashion-forward and Parisian she looked tonight. She was still little Sylvie from the South. She turned back and spotted Charles in the crowd. A smile immediately took the place of her frown, and she was about to raise her hand and wave at him, when she noticed the woman hanging off his arm.

Just like Sylvie, this woman wasn’t a flapper, her hair was long, reached past her shoulders, thick and curly, a lovely shade of auburn red, like fine-quality amber nuggets washed up on the Catalan Beach. Her makeup was stark, but underlined her natural features, the mouth framed by lips on the slightly thinner side, heavy eyelids, a sensual expression. When she turned her chin up and smiled at something Charles was saying to her, it was a sharp smile, one that implied, in reality, I don’t give much of a damn, chéri.

Whether her hackles were rising, or it was just a shiver running down her spine, Sylvie couldn’t honestly tell. Maybe a bit of both.

The woman laughed, her whole head thrown back. Then, Charles actually laughed, too. When had Sylvie last seen him do so? Last Christmas? No. Easter? No. New Year three years ago? She remembered it only hazily, if he’d laughed, it hadn’t stuck. Swallowing a lump that was quickly gathering in her throat, she was grateful when Armand chose that moment to reappear, a crystal glass filled to the brim with chilled water passing between their hands wordlessly. She downed the whole deal. No grace, no poise. He stared at her in a way that wondered, are you all right?

Or did it wonder, how can I make it all right for you? He’d already brought the water.

Sylvie lowered the glass slowly. It was completely empty now, drained. Looking up at him, his brown hair slipping out of its slick-back hairdo, a few strands fringing his brow, she smiled and shrugged apologetically. She couldn’t remember her brother at any point throughout their lives mentioning a woman’s name, only ever hers, my sister, Sylvie.

“That woman over there,” she asked him, because Armand was nice and bright and just ducky, nodding towards where Charles was standing, clasping the unknown mademoiselle’s two, pale, slender hands between his own, bigger, coarser. “Who is she?”

He followed her gaze, surprise overtaking his features. “You don’t know?” he asked in turn.

Shaking her head shamefully, thinking he meant, why hasn’t your brother told you that himself, she looked down at where her feet were strapped into those cute, pink satin-covered leather shoes. Before she did, however, across the ballroom, the woman had reached up, catching the back of Charles’ head in a claw-like grip, leaning in and whispering something against his lips.

She’d glimpsed nothing more of what followed, but she could imagine. Vividly. The girls at school had told her about it, what men’s lips were for. They were for kissing.

“That’s Eloisa Paolo,” Armand informed her, reaching out and easing the glass out of her tight grip, gently. “She’s an actress.”

He placed the empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter who nodded his head at him and paused for all of two seconds for the sake of the exchange.

The theatre, Sylvie thought, remembering everything Claire had told her. “An actress,” she repeated tentatively, raising her eyes and meeting Armand’s, brown and nice and bright and ducky. She frowned, carrying on, managing to sound genuinely curious, “Is she performing in anything right now, do you know?”

It was clear from Armand’s honest face that he knew, though he was hesitating to tell her. So, she latched onto his arm and glanced up at him, head slightly tilted to the side. Please, it meant. For too many reasons to explain, please. She recalled the ‘friends’ that Charles brought along to the theatre sometimes and couldn’t imagine that the rich Dubois boy, heir to his father’s precious coffee plantations in East Africa, wouldn’t be one of them.

“She’s currently doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Odéon Theatre,” Armand relinquished after a second’s pause, implicitly confirming her suspicions. He’d been to see her. With Charles. She grabbed his arm tighter, hanging off of him inelegantly, childishly. Reaching out, he – completely uninvited – stroked her cheek with his thumb. It soothed her. Also uninvited, she leaned her other cheek on his broad shoulder, still heated from their dancing, beneath layers of fabric.

“Is she any good?” she muttered.

Armand didn’t reply at first, which was on its own very telling. Sylvie smiled and straightened up, releasing him, brushing her dress down, feeling that at least a handful of pearls and sequins had survived, still hanging on for dear life.

“Maybe I’ll get Charles to take me, see for myself,” she commented, looking in every other direction than the one in which she last caught sight of her brother and his girl, the actress for whom he’d get out of the house several times a week. For Sylvie, he wouldn’t even go to Marseille, little more than half a day’s train travel away.

Gesturing towards the open terrace doors, beyond the still dozens of dancing couples and the jazz band, at the garden shrouded in shadows and thin spring-like moonlight, she changed the subject swiftly. “But won’t you tell me of your plantations in East Africa. Have you ever been?”

“My father’s plantations,” Armand corrected her, without truly insisting on it, as if he was too used to not having a say in these matters. “I’ve been, yes.”

They left the ballroom arm in arm.


~*~


How, one night, the townhouse could be filled to the brim with darbs, politicians’ sons and celebrity daughters, while the next, they were down to two maids, the chauffeur and the cook and themselves, naturally, Master and Mistress Gallard, in lieu of the true master and mistress of the house, perished fifteen years earlier, remained a bit of a mystery to Sylvie.

Charles’ party had made headlines in the morning press, whereas her name had been little more than a footnote, the actress by contrast featuring at the top of the list of famous people in attendance. Frankly, Sylvie wasn’t bitter about it, her curiosity was just double piqued, right?

What kind of woman was Eloisa Paolo? She had laughed so raucously, no holding back, no timidness. Guys undoubtedly didn’t leave her blushing or fretting or fidgeting, they left her on her toes, leaning into their space to kiss them smack on the lips.

Nothing like Sylvie had kissed Armand before they left the shadows of the gardens out back, where he’d proceeded to tell her about his travels throughout the great continent of Africa, about his father’s conservative ideas of coffee production and the pressure he was under to find a girl, because his parents called for engagement, marriage, and children, indeed, they called for those things soon, too. She’d felt for him, this nice, bright, ducky fellow who was only five years older than her, which meant he was still young, he was still imbued with every trait youth gives you, the longing for freedom and friendship and simple fun. And because she’d felt something for him in that moment, yet didn’t know what to say to help, she’d recalled the way she’d practised kissing with Agnès, after practicing it with her hand had proven mostly futile. And with Agnès’ face fresh in memory, she had stepped up to him, placing one hand on his chest (for hugging, she’d been told) and found herself close enough that if she simply inclined her chin, she could press her lips softly to the corner of his mouth (for kissing, she’d been told in addition). It had lasted all but two seconds. When she drew back, he didn’t prevent her from doing so. Briefly, she thought he didn’t care for it, but then he said, quietly, like it was spoken into the dark:

Some girls are worth waiting for, I think.

She’d smiled and allowed him to lead her back inside.

Now it was Sunday afternoon, the party was old news, something in the past until the Coffee Baron hosted the next one, and they’d gathered, just the two of them, Charles and Sylvie, in the dining room with the long mahogany table, shining white tablecloths and the chandelier that cast everything in a diamond hue, the only real leftover from Friday night. Same hue, same light, same crystal glass.

Lifting her glass to her lips, Sylvie drank slowly, same chilled water.

While her parents were alive, they’d all met for Sunday roast, like we were Englishmen, her father would laugh, cutting the duck or the turkey or the pig in equal parts, because they were after all French and equality came with the territory. She hadn’t been home on a regular Sunday before, this was her very first of the kind, and it pleased her for some reason to find that this was another of the unchangeables which Charles hadn’t touched. Only for a minute did she wonder who he’d had Sunday roast with until her arrival this week, who had taken her place before she had been there to take it herself.

Charles didn’t cut the bird like their father had, he didn’t want anything to do with it beyond the act of chewing it up, instead letting the cook cut it, unequal slices, some pieces better than others and they had no say in what they were served, they plates filled in a heap of roasted potatoes, steaming meat and some beans, a side of bread.

Accepting her food, placing the plate in front of herself primly, Sylvie looked down at it and something ached in her belly, in the pit of her soul. Although this ritual seemed unchangeable, indeed, it was still not the same, and the sameness she’d longed for ever since Charles sent her off to boarding school at seven years old, you had to question whether it had truly ever existed. If it hadn’t died with the people to which it had been attached.

Like her father’s pocket watch. To the bottom of the Atlantic it had sunk, just like him.

She swallowed hard and waited for Charles to be served his portion as well, before making as if to start eating. Her stomach was suddenly in knots, she had no appetite whatsoever.

“I hear you enjoyed yourself at the party last Friday,” he said, cutting a piece of breast with a harsh chop of his knife, though he chewed on it with all the manners that had been installed in him by their mother, in Sylvie, too, for that matter. How much etiquette you could learn in seven years, before it was another world you had to adapt to. Even more in sixteen of them, which was certainly why Charles led a business empire and she came last on the list. His words made her blush, and she suddenly imagined what Armand could have said to him.

Your sister is a fine girl. She tried to kiss me, you know.

However, Armand was nice, bright and ducky, he wouldn’t say something so tactless, he wouldn’t make it awkward for her, so that couldn’t be what her brother meant. It was simply a general statement, others might have seen her that night, Charles could’ve talked to anybody. She had been distinctive in her pearl-embroidered, baby pink dress, hadn’t she? New from the maker. Straight out of town.

“It was a lot of fun,” ended up being what she stuck to, because it was safe, it was neutral, then she thought twice about it and added, amused despite herself, “Although we better not tell the aunties about it, they’d be appalled.” It had been five lonely years in Marseille, part of her wanted Charles to understand that. An unpleasant expression passed over her older brother’s face at the mention of Marguerite and Marceline, akin to distaste or some other darkness around his eyes, the hard line of his mouth.

Sylvie didn’t know what that meant.

“What did you think about Armand?” Charles completely ignored their aunts, as if in this household they didn’t exist, in this city they didn’t, in the France that was his. Sylvie wasn’t sure what to think of that, since in her world, they had very much existed; like a firm, unwavering reality. If Sylvie was like Paris, the aunties were like the tricolour flag, flying at full mast over everyone’s heads.

But Sylvie wasn’t like Paris, she was a foreigner in her own childhood home.

They never seemed to look at the same things at the same time, Charles and her. Her current reality might just be auntless as a result, he might have made it that way.

Poking at a potato thoughtfully, she considered his enquiry. What was it to him, how she liked or didn’t like Armand Dubois, it had no bearing for their business, did it? Finally steeling herself, she lifted the potato piece to her mouth and ate it, mostly to buy herself more time. I kissed your associate, it was a clumsy kiss, I’m sorry, that was what she wanted to say. What she did say was this:

“Your business partner is charming; I like him very much.”

As she spoke, slowly Charles’ shoulders and upper arms relaxed until he looked less rigid and less hardboiled than he had arrived half an hour ago. For the first time, Sylvie considered whether he was trying to make a match between them. Whether she, for once, was a part of his agenda.

Whether she by dating Armand Dubois could finally satisfy her brother.

What a position to be in. She felt strangely thrilled by it. The first potato was followed by another, then a piece of duck, moist and tender. Remembering the champagne prickling on her tongue, tickling as it went down her throat, Sylvie smiled to herself, looking down at her plate of food. This was home. A new home, sure, but home, nonetheless. She could make it hers.

Charles, too, seemed to focus on eating for a while, until he said, nonchalantly, like it didn’t matter: “I’ll find an occasion for you to meet again soon.”

Didn’t that sound like a promise?


~*~


That night, she caught him red-handed, shrugging into his coat, putting on his top hat, clearly on his way out the door. Sylvie stopped some feet away and Charles had no qualms, he met her eyes unapologetically, which in turn made her smile. She had pardoned him already, after all. Between them, it was a matter of forgiving and forgetting, if nothing else then because she had every intention of coming along. No fear of abandonment tonight, no wandering the deserted hallways alone.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, like an offer. No one could have a doubt that he was, but she wanted to hear him say it. Make her that much of a person. Please. She would gladly be his prop, but she would be his person first.

“Going to the theatre,” he replied, fixing his collar, indifferently. Sylvie thought about the redheaded actress who looked both like some nostalgic memorabilia and a vision of a coming age. How much did a woman have to give, to have a leg in each tense, past and future? What did it cost?

Her aunties had constantly talked about the price of things. So, how much cush did you have to part with to get that far?

“Sounds delightful, let me come,” she responded immediately, and it was worth the beat, the waiting uneasily for the completely perfect timing, to deliver it just right, seeing his eyes widen a second, then narrow to slits. He had her figured out.

Good, she wanted him to have her figured out, didn’t she? Wasn’t that what she wanted more than anything? Sylvie turned to Claire who’d been preoccupied dressing Charles in his outerwear. Coat. Gloves, it was still chilly out at night after the sun had set. “Could you fetch my coat for me?”

Claire curtsied and hurried over to the coatrack, pulling down Sylvie’s knee-length fur coat, mink, it was old but a gift from her brother, incidentally. Charles frowned the entire way.

“Two things,” he said slowly, measuring his every word, “First off, I only have a ticket for myself and secondly, we don’t have time for you to get all dolled up, Sylvie.”

It was a reference to the expected change of dress, from afternoon to evening attire, from something loose-fitting and comfortable to something that allowed people to glimpse her feminine charms, right? From selfish indulgence to the indulgence of the public.

Well, about that…

“Firstly,” Sylvie replied, “Is it really going to be sold out?” Meaning, if he wanted, couldn’t he just buy her a second ticket? They looked at each other for a long time, while Claire stood somewhere off-centre, clutching the stupid fur coat. The tension was palpable. “And secondly, are you saying I can’t go like this?” She gestured at herself, at her pretty, cream-coloured and all newly-constructed drapery-style dress which, true, was a tea gown, but who could truly tell the difference in the dark of the theatre? Could he? Who was she going to meet there who’d be able to tell – and after that, who would care? Who was going to make a big fuss about it?

His jaw tightened for a long moment, his hands curled into fists at his sides, then he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. Sylvie stood her ground.

“I’ll put on a headband, if it’s so important,” she suggested, turning towards Claire with the big eyes and the even bigger coat crumbled between her hands. “Get one of my headbands in my room, Claire, make sure it matches the dress,” she ordered. Monsieur Martin truly had considered everything, her new wardrobe was complete.

Claire was in the middle of tossing the coat over the nearest chair, when Charles halted her, commanding curtly:

“Forget the headband. Put on your coat, Sylvie, and let’s go. I’m already late.”

She beamed. As such, she’d get to see the Italian woman who could make Charles laugh, who could make Charles look like he’d forgotten the Titanic as well as her, his little sister, baby Sylvie. Maybe she could learn a few tricks from Eloisa Paolo, maybe that woman would tell Sylvie how. How to forget the big awful. How to laugh in the face of someone leaning in to kiss you. Those things, Sylvie would like to learn. She’d like to learn them very much.

Slinking back to the chair, Claire picked up the long coat, helping Sylvie shrug into it, then moving in front of her to fasten the clasps until it was a tight enough fit around her frame. Sylvie caught her by the wrist before she could step back, looking her directly in the eyes and asking, earnestly and in a low whisper, “Do I really look as terrible as he makes it sound?”

With a small smile and a shake of her head, Claire’s answer came promptly, “You look lovely, mademoiselle.” Her whisper was intimate, meant only for Sylvie’s ears, but off to the side Charles huffed. He’d picked up on their murmuring.

Sylvie squeezed the maid’s hand before finally letting go, presenting herself the way Charles would simply have to take her. Ready or not. Willing or not.

He sighed, deep in his chest, but didn’t neglect to open the door for her, letting her step outside first.

So they went.