City of Secrets (15 page)

Resigned to living with Elfreda’s unbecoming leg-of-mutton sleeves and ugly purple batiste walking dress for another day, Maddie then had a surprisingly enjoyable morning rummaging among the gloves, ribbons, buttons, parasols, artificial flowers, and silk stockings on display at both the Galeries and Le Printemps across the street, so that by the time they had settled in for lunch at Richard-Lucas, they were burdened with dozens of little paper-and-string-wrapped parcels, with which Maddie sent Louise back to the Ritz, assuring her that they would wait until she returned before going on to Worth’s.

“Now then,” Maddie said in a conspiratorial tone over the soup course, “we are alone at last and can have a cozy little chat. But you must first tell me, for I am not entirely sure I understand, why precisely your mother has brought you here to Paris.”

Elfreda sighed. “Oh, dear. We have been having such a jolly time this morning that I quite forgot about that. You shall have to think of someone you may have introduced me to, so that the day will not seem a total waste.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Paris is only the first stop, you see,” Elfreda explained. “As you may imagine, Mama does not go traveling to enjoy herself. No, she has a
mission.
She is determined that we will do the entire grand tour in the hope, however vain, that I shall meet some eligible gentleman, preferably titled, who will wish to marry me.”

Maddie put down her spoon and stared. “Good gracious, does anyone still do things that way? What about your mother’s republican principles? And are the men at home so unsuitable that you need to travel abroad to find a husband?”

Elfreda looked as if this required a lengthy explanation, so they waited until their first course had been cleared and a very fine looking
escalope de veau
laid before them before delving into it.

“Mama’s principles are, you might say, flexible,” Elfreda explained, after she had done justice to the veal and begun nibbling at her carrots. “She is all for conducting her own life according to them and, for Papa’s sake, dealing with people from all sorts of undistinguished backgrounds. But for me, she insists on only the best—or at least, the most expensive. The real reason she let me go out with you today, I believe, is that she does not wish me to get to know the same people she and Papa know, for fear one of them will be an attractive but impoverished young bank clerk or dry goods salesperson. Instead, I am to be put in the way of counts and princes, if at all possible ... even if they, too, must be purchased.”

“And what does your papa say to all this?”

Elfreda smiled fondly.  “Oh, Papa doesn’t say very much—well, he can’t when Mama holds forth—but I know he wants only what will make me happy.”

That struck a familiar chord in Maddie, whose father had been much the same. But otherwise she suspected her youth had been as different from Elfreda’s as she was from Elfreda. She couldn’t help being impressed by the girl’s eloquence, for one thing. Maddie could not recall that she had ever been so outspoken at that age. Her first impression of Miss Jervis as a shy, unprepossessing child overshadowed by her mother had not survived the channel crossing, but now Maddie began to see in Elfreda the makings of an intelligent and witty woman—if she were ever allowed to grow up and be herself.

“I take it you do not care for a title?” Maddie said.

Elfreda shrugged. “It does not matter to me one way or the other. Papa’s title, even if it is only a knighthood, and not a hereditary title, has had its uses—even I have seen that—but I think a coronet is unimportant if one’s husband has other qualities.”

“Such as?”

Elfreda concentrated on her food for a moment, as if considering this. “Well, he need not be wealthy if he is industrious, or at least imaginative, so that he may one day gain wealth, even a title. Sometimes I think Mama has forgotten that Papa was not a knight when she married him, but worked for that honor.”

“She probably hopes you won’t have to go through the same struggle for recognition.”

“Oh, but one may be recognized for one’s talent without having such formal ceremony made of it. Also, I think a profession which allows one to come in contact with what Mama calls the best people is even better than a title, which means that those people must recognize you whether they like you or not. I should very much dislike any more ... that is, I should not care to be tolerated only for my wealth or position. People who do that really only want to lower you to their level.”

Into Maddie’s mind came the picture of Laurence Fox, charming Lord This and Lady That into posing for him, offering them cups of tea and in turn being offered a weekend at their country houses or trips to Paris. Of course! she realized. Elfreda might speak in generalities, but she had someone very specific in mind.

“Was there no one at home with such qualifications?” she asked.

Elfreda raised her light blue eyes. Maddie made a mental note of her long lashes and a need for a little artificial darkener, but otherwise she kept her expression interested, if impartial.

“There were very few eligible young men in our circle,” Elfreda equivocated, “and none of them proposed marrying me. I am not entirely sorry, for myself, but it would have saved Mama a great deal of bother, I’m sure, if I could have induced one of them to have me. But since I did not know even how to bring them to the point of proposing, there was no question of accepting.”

“You don’t seem the kind of girl who is comfortable flirting with boys at dances.”

Elfreda sighed. “I’m not. Well, Mrs. Malcolm, just look at me. I am not bad-looking, I suppose, but I’m not one of those delicate butterflies to whom coquettishness comes naturally. I would only look silly if I tried to flutter my eyelashes and pretend to be stupid.”

Maddie reached across the table to press the girl’s hand. “Look here, Elfreda. You
are
pretty, and very sweet, and delightful to talk to. You have more than enough qualities of your own that need only be brought out to make you the belle of any ball.”

Elfreda looked dubious. “How do I do that?”

“We
will do that,” Maddie declared. “In fact, we can start right now, by thinking of something more interesting to call you. That is, if I am right that you do not especially care for your name?”

Elfreda sighed tragically. “I
hate
it! But I was named for my grandmama on Father’s side, who set him up in business when he was a young man. As long as she was alive, I had to be called Elfreda as often and as loudly as possible—she grew quite deaf in her old age, you see. Grandmama died when I was sixteen, and by that time no one ever thought to call me anything else.”

“Do you have a middle name?”

“Yes. That is, my whole name is Marguerite Elfreda. Marguerite was my papa’s favorite aunt, but Mama never liked her and said the name sounded like a parlor maid’s.”

“Oh, but it’s perfect!” Maddie said. “Do you know what Marguerite means in French?”

“It’s a flower of some sort, isn’t it?”

“A daisy! And that’s what we’ll call you. It’s not just Laurie Fox who can bestow names on people. From now on, you are Daisy.”

Daisy blushed at the mention of Laurie’s name, then smiled. “Yes, I think I like that. And Mama would never guess. She refuses to learn French and will have no idea that a daisy is a marguerite.”

“If she should ask, we’ll tell her you remind me of my sister Daisy,” Maddie said in a conspiratorial whisper, “so I call you that because I like to think of you as a sister.”

“Do you
have
a sister Daisy?”

“I have no sisters at all, but your mama doesn’t have to know that.”

Daisy giggled, a sound Maddie thought indicated she was getting into the spirit of the thing.

“You can also tell your mama that we ran into Prince Kropotkin today, and, let me see, his grandson should do, although I have no idea if he has one. That should appease Lady Jervis’s sense of mission.”

“Who in the world is Prince Kropotkin?” Daisy asked, as her eyes widened at the pastry cart being rolled in their direction.

Maddie told her, and Daisy decided the story had enough truth in it that it wasn’t quite lying; then, when Maddie suggested that if they did not, in fact, run across any counts or princes during their stay in Paris, they would just make up one or two more, Daisy lost her remaining qualms about relative truthfulness. She ordered an éclair
and
a napoleon and agreed that even a lie could be justified to make Mama happy.

“Not that we will not meet some perfectly charming young men anyway,” Maddie assured her, warming to her own mission. “Florence Wingate will see to that, even if I fail to do so. How do you like your young men, by the way? Tall and fair or dark and slim and romantic looking?”

“Oh, well, I hadn’t really thought of it that way, as if one could order one from a catalogue. But ... I suppose I like fair hair and blue eyes. I met a poet once. He was terribly ineligible, of course, but what really made me uncomfortable was that he was so fragile-looking that I was afraid to shake hands for fear of knocking him over.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Maddie said. “That is one of the disadvantages of being tall. Well, let me see.  We are looking for a fair-haired, well set-up young man, not necessarily foreign, preferably handsome ... eligibility negotiable.”

Daisy giggled again, and Maddie was certain that she too envisioned Laurence Fox as just filling the bill. They were making plans for the third step toward making Daisy into a belle—having her hair styled by a real French
coiffeur
—when Louise returned and joined in the discussion. Soon even Louise sounded as if she were almost enjoying herself, and by the time they set off for Maddie’s fitting at Worth’s, it seemed that Daisy had shed the last of her shyness.

The almost oppressively elegant atmosphere of the House of Worth awed Daisy at first, but by the time they had been shown into a private salon and had the house’s latest creations paraded before them, she was so fascinated that she forgot to be self-conscious. Maddie asked her for her opinion, and together they chose two morning dresses and an evening gown for Maddie, and perhaps—well, she would have to think about it—that charming walking dress that would suit Daisy beautifully made up in pale green.

Afterward, Maddie invited her into the fitting room, where Daisy looked on with interest as Louise helped Maddie off with her outer garments so she could stand in her petticoat to be measured from every conceivable angle. The tiny seamstress, herself dressed in severe black except for a white pincushion fastened to her wrist with a ribbon, exclaimed with delight over Maddie’s height and perfect proportions. Maddie winked over her head at Daisy, who had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling again.

Since she had to stand still, Maddie passed the time watching Daisy and reflected that there might be a good deal of satisfaction to be gained from easing the passage into womanhood of a girl like Daisy, helping her avoid some of the disappointments and difficulties Maddie herself had experienced and to find happiness sooner in life. She began to understand, too, why so many of her supposed friends in St. Louis had turned a deaf ear to her pleas for help with the Elm Street Residency women. It was not, as Maddie had supposed, that they blamed those women for their own misfortunes, but that they did not want to think it could happen to them ... or to their daughters. Maddie would be reluctant to expose Daisy to such things, even if the knowledge might make her a stronger woman.

It was the first time in her memory that Maddie had felt anything that might be described as maternal instinct. How odd that it should surface now.

Laurence Fox, having overindulged himself already by accepting train fare from Mrs. Malcolm, refused a room at her expense at the Ritz and instead installed himself and his photographic equipment in a room in the less fashionable but more picturesque quarter of the city called the Marais. There he amused himself by taking candid photographs of the more colorful local denizens before finally turning up, full of apologies for not having reported sooner, at the Ritz. Maddie promptly told him he could redeem himself by escorting her and the Jervises to the opera and Maxim’s the next night and gave him a handful of francs to buy tickets and make arrangements for them.

She had no need to mention anything more about Daisy than that she would be coming, but it was impossible to expect Daisy to greet the plan quite so calmly.

“Oh, Mrs. Malcolm ... the opera! Maxim’s! And I haven’t a thing to wear!”

“You will,” Maddie reminded her, “if you will only put on your hat and come with me to Worth’s. They should be able to finish your new evening gown in time for Friday.”

There followed two days of frantic fittings, searches for just the right evening wrap to go over their new gowns, and just the right shoes and stockings to go under them, activities which served Maddie well enough to forget her momentary lapse into self-pity over having no one to share the spring with. Daisy’s delight at her “new look” would do nicely—for now—as a substitute.

So it was that Daisy Jervis entered the most famous restaurant in Paris on Laurence Fox’s arm looking so radiant that even Laurie commented on it, which made Daisy look even lovelier and left Maddie grateful to the young man for his sensitivity. It also made her feel her loneliness even more acutely, and when they were shown to their table on the exclusive upper level, where they had an excellent view of the lower floor and the prettiest women and handsomest men in Paris—all in pairs—she felt even more
de trop.
But she did her best to seem at ease.

“However did you manage this?” she whispered to Laurie as the waiter pulled her chair out for her. Polished crystal glinted in the soft light of the miniature pink lamp at their table, and behind them the wall gleamed with wood wax and reflected glory.

“It was simple,” Laurie said and grinned. “I sent them your photograph. Naturally, they would want to place you where you can be best admired by everyone else.”